Personality correlates of type 1 diabetes in a national representative sample
Authors
Iva Čukić
Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh
Alexander Weiss
Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
Keywords:
personality traits, type 1 diabetes, neuroticism, openness, insulin
Abstract
We examined cross-sectional relationships between personality traits and type 1 diabetes. The sample (n=8490) was taken from the 1982-84 wave of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiological Follow-up Study. We fit three logistic regression models to test whether neuroticism, extraversion, openness, or the Type A behavior pattern were associated with type 1 diabetes. Model 1 included sex, age, race/ethnicity and all four personality traits. Model 2 added depressive symptoms. Model 3 added body mass index, hypertension, and cigarette smoking status. Results regarding personality traits were consistent across all three models: higher neuroticism was associated with 39% higher chance of having type 1 diabetes per standard deviation increase and openness was associated with 26% decrease in that chance per standard deviation increase. Extraversion, and Type A personality were not associated with type 1 diabetes in our models.
