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Review
. 2018 Sep 12;20(11):104.
doi: 10.1007/s11886-018-1048-x.

Type D Personality as a Risk Factor in Coronary Heart Disease: a Review of Current Evidence

Nina Kupper  1   2 , Johan Denollet  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Type D Personality as a Risk Factor in Coronary Heart Disease: a Review of Current Evidence

Nina Kupper et al. Curr Cardiol Rep. .

Abstract

Purpose of the review: This review article synthesizes recent research findings on the psychological context of Type D personality and the mechanisms through which Type D affects disease progression and prognosis among patients with coronary heart disease (CHD).

Recent findings: One in four patients with CHD has a Distressed (Type D) personality, which is characterized by two stable traits: social inhibition and negative affectivity. Type D personality predicts increased mortality and morbidity burden, and poorer health-related quality of life. Type D is part of a family of psychosocial risk factors that affect CHD prognosis. The pattern of co-occurrence of these psychosocial factors and intra-individual differences in psychosocial profiles may affect risk prediction accuracy. Multiple biological and behavioral processes have been associated with Type D personality. Identifying pathways explaining the observed associations between Type D personality and CHD is important to improve etiological and pathophysiological knowledge and to design personalized interventions, and targeting specific risk-associated pathways.

Keywords: Atherosclerosis; Biobehavioral mechanisms; Cardiac mortality; Coronary heart disease; Heterogeneity; Risk profiles; Stress; Type D personality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

Nina Kupper and Johan Denollet declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Pathophysiological pathways of Type D personality. Elements from this figure (i.e., the atherosclerotic process) were adapted from a figure at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Endo_dysfunction_Athero.PNG under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license [70]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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