Psychological pathways between type D personality and COVID-19

Patients with a type D personality have worse social functioning and mental health and more affective constraints than non-type D personalities. They have a negative outlook on life and health-related issues. The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of stress and anxiety in the relationship between type D personality and COVID-19 by adjustment of the effect of demographic characteristics and perceived symptoms as confounder variables.

A total of 196 patients out of those suspected of having COVID-19 and visiting the reference hospitals were selected. They had completed the type D personality and the anxiety and stress scales along with their hospital admission form before undergoing COVID-19 testing. After their COVID-19 test, the participants were divided into two groups based on their disease, an infected group (n = 90) and a non-infected group (n = 106).

Type D personality has no significant direct effect on infection with the disease, but taking into account the mediating variable of stress, the odds of an event in those with type D personality is 2.21 times higher than those without this personality (p = .027) and, taking into account the mediating variable of anxiety, having a type D personality increases the odds of an event by 2.62 times (p = .011), holding demographic characteristics and perceived symptoms constant.

Given the indirect relationship between COVID-19 and type D personality, the mediating variables of stress and anxiety can be considered full mediating variables.