Personality and mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke.

Background: The role of personality in the causation of circulatory diseases has been controversial.

Methods: From June through August 1990, 41,442 residents of Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan completed the Japanese version of the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised and another questionnaire on various health habits. During 11 years of follow-up until March 31, 2001, we identified 90 deaths from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and 131 deaths from stroke. We used Cox regression to estimate the relative risk of IHD and stroke according to the three levels of four personality subscales (extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie), with adjustment for sex, age, and other potentially confounding variables.

Results: Multivariate relative risks of IHD for the highest verses the lowest level of personality subscales were 0.7 for extraversion, 1.1 for neuroticism, 1.3 for psychoticism, and 0.8 for lie. Multivariate relative risks of stroke for the highest verses the lowest level of personality subscales were 1.0 for extraversion, 0.9 for neuroticism, 1.2 for psychoticism, and 1.2 for lie.

Conclusions: This prospective study does not support the hypothesis that personality is a risk factor for mortality from IHD and stroke.