Type D personality and three-month psychosocial outcomes among patients post-myocardial infarction

Type D personality has been proposed as a risk factor for poor prognosis in cardiac patients. Recent studies which have adopted a dimensional approach to Type D (negative affectivity×social inhibition) found no effect of Type D on mortality, after controlling for its constituent elements. To-date, no study has determined if Type D is associated with psychosocial outcomes in post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients when conceptualised as a dimensional variable.

Participants were 192 MI patients (138 males, 54 females, mean age 66.0years) who provided demographic and clinical information, and completed measures of Type D one-week post-MI. Three months later, 131 of these MI patients completed measures of disability and quality of life.

Using regression analyses, adjusted for demographic and clinical data, Type D emerged as a significant predictor of disability and quality of life in MI patients, when analysed using the traditional categorical approach. However, Type D did not predict disability and quality of life when it was analysed using the interaction of negative affectivity and social inhibition. Negative affect emerged as a significant predictor of both disability (β=.433, t(130)=3.53, p<.01), and quality of life (β=-.624, t(130)=-5.68, p<.001).

The results suggest that Type D is not associated with short-term psychosocial outcome in MI patients, after controlling for its constituent elements. However, negative affect was significantly associated with both disability and quality of life. Future research should conceptualise Type D as the interaction between negative affectivity and social inhibition, rather than as a typology.