Personality traits and chronic illness: a comparison of individuals with psychiatric, coronary heart disease, and HIV/AIDS diagnoses.

This secondary analysis used the five-factor model of personality to examine personality traits in four samples of patients with chronic disorders. Profiles of personality traits differed across disorders. Although participants with psychiatric disorders and participants with HIV/AIDS had similar patterns of personality traits, patients with psychiatric disorders were more extreme on all traits except agreeableness.

Further exploration: maturity and adherence in adolescent and young adult heart transplant recipients.

Context: Pediatric transplant clinicians note high rates of nonadherence with medications, appointment keeping, and laboratory tests and high rates of engagement in high-risk behaviors among older adolescents and young adult recipients. The caregivers also report symptoms of identity confusion, social immaturity, and failure to appreciate consequences of risky behavior among recipients.

Objective: To build on an earlier study that identified developmental characteristics that distinguish poor from good adherers.

Maturity and adherence in adolescent and young adult heart recipients.

Background: Pediatric transplant (txp) teams note high rates of non-adherence and risky behaviors linked to morbidity and mortality among adolescent and young adult recipients. Clinicians and parents alike report symptoms of social immaturity and failure to appreciate consequences of risky behavior; relationships between the two have not been studied in this population.

Method: This two-phase mixed method study examined adherence, high-risk behaviors, and maturity in a sample of 27 heart recipients, aged 15-31, who underwent transplantation in childhood or adolescence at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Personality characteristics among cardiothoracic transplant recipients.

Personality characteristics are clinically believed to predict posttransplant adherence and outcome; however, data, as to the prevalence and type of personality disorders (PDs) and distribution of personality traits among transplant (txp) populations, are sparse and inconclusive. This paper reports on the prevalence and type of PD and range of personality traits, according to the Five-Factor model, among 73 adult cardiothoracic txp recipients. It represents the first systematic assessment of PDs and traits in a sample of txp recipients.