Personality has been associated with alcohol use, but less is known about how alcohol use may influence long-term personality trait change.
The present study examines associations between alcohol use ...and change in the five major personality traits across two measurement occasions (mean follow-up of 5.6 years). A total of 39 722 participants (54% women) were pooled from six cohort studies for an individual-participant meta-analysis. Alcohol use was measured as (1) average alcohol consumption, (2) frequency of binge drinking, (3) symptoms of alcohol use disorder, and (4) a global indicator of risky alcohol use. Changes in the five major personality traits (extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) were used as outcomes.
Risky alcohol use was associated with increasing extraversion 0.25 T-scores over the mean follow-up of 5.6 years; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.07-0.44 and decreasing emotional stability (-0.28; 95% CI -0.48 to -0.08), agreeableness (-0.67; 95% CI -0.87 to -0.36), and conscientiousness (-0.58; 95% CI -0.79 to -0.38). Except the association between alcohol use and extraversion, these associations were consistent across cohort studies and across different measures of alcohol use.
These findings suggest that alcohol use is associated with personality trait changes in adulthood.
To examine whether social isolation and loneliness (1) predict acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke among those with no history of AMI or stroke, (2) are related to mortality risk among those ...with a history of AMI or stroke, and (3) the extent to which these associations are explained by known risk factors or pre-existing chronic conditions.
Participants were 479 054 individuals from the UK Biobank. The exposures were self-reported social isolation and loneliness. AMI, stroke and mortality were the outcomes.
Over 7.1 years, 5731 had first AMI, and 3471 had first stroke. In model adjusted for demographics, social isolation was associated with higher risk of AMI (HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.3 to -1.55) and stroke (HR 1.39, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.54). When adjusted for all the other risk factors, the HR for AMI was attenuated by 84% to 1.07 (95% CI 0.99 to 1.16) and the HR for stroke was attenuated by 83% to 1.06 (95% CI 0.96 to 1.19). Loneliness was associated with higher risk of AMI before (HR 1.49, 95% CI 1.36 to 1.64) but attenuated considerably with adjustments (HR 1.06, 95% CI 0.96 to 1.17). This was also the case for stroke (HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.55 before and HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.91 to 1.19 after adjustments). Social isolation, but not loneliness, was associated with increased mortality in participants with a history of AMI (HR 1.25, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.51) or stroke (HR 1.32, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.61) in the fully adjusted model.
Isolated and lonely persons are at increased risk of AMI and stroke, and, among those with a history of AMI or stroke, increased risk of death. Most of this risk was explained by conventional risk factors.
The associations of social isolation and loneliness with premature mortality are well known, but the risk factors linking them remain unclear. We sought to identify risk factors that might explain ...the increased mortality in socially isolated and lonely individuals.
We used prospective follow-up data from the UK Biobank cohort study to assess self-reported isolation (a three-item scale) and loneliness (two questions). The main outcomes were all-cause and cause-specific mortality. We calculated the percentage of excess risk mediated by risk factors to assess the extent to which the associations of social isolation and loneliness with mortality were attributable to differences between isolated and lonely individuals and others in biological (body-mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and handgrip strength), behavioural (smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity), socioeconomic (education, neighbourhood deprivation, and household income), and psychological (depressive symptoms and cognitive capacity) risk factors.
466 901 men and women (mean age at baseline 56·5 years SD 8·1) were included in the analyses, with a mean follow-up of 6·5 years (SD 0·8). The hazard ratio for all-cause mortality for social isolation compared with no social isolation was 1·73 (95% CI 1·65–1·82) after adjustment for age, sex, ethnic origin, and chronic disease (ie, minimally adjusted), and was 1·26 (95% CI 1·20–1·33) after further adjustment for socioeconomic factors, health-related behaviours, depressive symptoms, biological factors, cognitive performance, and self-rated health (ie, fully adjusted). The minimally adjusted hazard ratio for mortality risk related to loneliness was 1·38 (95% CI 1·30–1·47), which reduced to 0·99 (95% CI 0·93–1·06) after full adjustment for baseline risks.
Isolated and lonely people are at increased risk of death. Health policies addressing risk factors such as adverse socioeconomic conditions, unhealthy lifestyle, and lower mental wellbeing might reduce excess mortality among the isolated and the lonely.
Academy of Finland, NordForsk, and the UK Medical Research Council.
Background
Personality is suggested to be a major risk factor for depression but large‐scale individual participant meta‐analyses on this topic are lacking.
Method
Data from 10 prospective community ...cohort studies with 117,899 participants (mean age 49.0 years; 54.7% women) were pooled for individual participant meta‐analysis to determine the association between personality traits of the five‐factor model and risk of depressive symptoms.
Results
In cross‐sectional analysis, low extraversion (pooled standardized regression coefficient (B) = –.08; 95% confidence interval = –0.11, –0.04), high neuroticism (B = .39; 0.32, 0.45), and low conscientiousness (B = –.09; –0.10, –0.06) were associated with depressive symptoms. Similar associations were observed in longitudinal analyses adjusted for baseline depressive symptoms (n = 56,735; mean follow‐up of 5.0 years): low extraversion (B = –.03; –0.05, –0.01), high neuroticism (B = .12; 0.10, 0.13), and low conscientiousness (B = –.04; –0.06, –0.02) were associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms at follow‐up. In turn, depressive symptoms were associated with personality change in extraversion (B = –.07; 95% CI = –0.12, –0.02), neuroticism (B = .23; 0.09, 0.36), agreeableness (B = –.09; –0.15, –0.04), conscientiousness (B = –.14; –0.21, –0.07), and openness to experience (B = –.04; –0.08, 0.00).
Conclusions
Personality traits are prospectively associated with the development of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms, in turn, are associated with changes in personality that may be temporary or persistent.
Highlights • We examined the association between the Big Five personality traits and alcohol consumption. • High and increasing alcohol consumption is more common among extraverts and those low on ...conscientiousness. • High agreeableness and low openness may increase odds of reducing alcohol consumption and preferring abstinence.
Aims
To investigate cross‐sectional and longitudinal associations between personality and smoking, and test whether socio‐demographic factors modify these associations.
Design
Cross‐sectional and ...longitudinal individual‐participant meta‐analysis.
Setting
Nine cohort studies from Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Participants
A total of 79 757 men and women (mean age = 50.8 years).
Measurements
Personality traits of the five‐factor model (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience) were used as exposures. Outcomes were current smoking status (current smoker, ex‐smoker and never smoker), smoking initiation, smoking relapse and smoking cessation. Associations between personality and smoking were modelled using logistic and multinomial logistic regression, and study‐specific findings were combined using random‐effect meta‐analysis.
Findings
Current smoking was associated with higher extraversion odds ratio per 1 standard deviation increase in the score: 1.16; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.08–1.24, higher neuroticism (1.19; 95% CI = 1.13–1.26) and lower conscientiousness (95% CI = 0.88; 0.83–0.94). Among non‐smokers, smoking initiation during the follow‐up period was predicted prospectively by higher extraversion (1.22; 95% CI = 1.04–1.43) and lower conscientiousness (0.80; 95% CI = 0.68–0.93), whereas higher neuroticism (1.16; 95% CI = 1.04–1.30) predicted smoking relapse among ex‐smokers. Among smokers, smoking cessation was negatively associated with neuroticism (0.91; 95% CI = 0.87–0.96). Socio‐demographic variables did not appear to modify the associations between personality and smoking.
Conclusions
Adult smokers have higher extraversion, higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness personality scores than non‐smokers. Initiation into smoking is associated positively with higher extraversion and lower conscientiousness, while relapse to smoking among ex‐smokers is associated with higher neuroticism.
Objectives
Healthcare registers are invaluable resources for research. Partly overlapping register entries and preliminary diagnoses may introduce bias. We compare various methods to address this ...issue and provide fully reproducible open‐source R scripts.
Methods
We used all Finnish healthcare registers 1969–2020, including inpatient, outpatient and primary care. Four distinct models were formulated based on previous reports to identify actual admissions, discharges, and discharge diagnoses. We calculated the annual number of treatment events and patients, and the median length of hospital stay (LOS). We compared these metrics to non‐processed data. Additionally, we analyzed the lifetime number of individuals with registered mental disorders.
Results
Overall, 2,130,468 individuals had a registered medical contact related to mental disorders. After processing, the annual number of inpatient episodes decreased by 5.85%–10.87% and LOS increased by up to 3 days (27.27%) in years 2011–2020. The number of individuals with lifetime diagnoses reduced by more than 1 percent point (pp) in two categories: schizophrenia spectrum (3.69–3.81pp) and organic mental disorders (1.2–1.27pp).
Conclusions
The methods employed in pre‐processing register data significantly impact the number of inpatient episodes and LOS. Regarding lifetime incidence of mental disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders require a particular focus on data pre‐processing.
Personality influences an individual's adaptation to a specific job or organization. Little is known about personality trait differences between medical career and specialty choices after graduating ...from medical school when actually practicing different medical specialties. Moreover, whether personality traits contribute to important career choices such as choosing to work in the private or public sector or with clinical patient contact, as well as change of specialty, have remained largely unexplored. In a nationally representative sample of Finnish physicians (N = 2837) we examined how personality traits are associated with medical career choices after graduating from medical school, in terms of employment sector, patient contact, medical specialty and change of specialty.
Personality was assessed using the shortened version of the Big Five Inventory (S-BFI). An analysis of covariance with posthoc tests for pairwise comparisons was conducted, adjusted for gender and age with confounders (employment sector, clinical patient contact and medical specialty).
Higher openness was associated with working in the private sector, specializing in psychiatry, changing specialty and not practicing with patients. Lower openness was associated with a high amount of patient contact and specializing in general practice as well as ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology. Higher conscientiousness was associated with a high amount of patient contact and specializing in surgery and other internal medicine specialties. Lower conscientiousness was associated with specializing in psychiatry and hospital service specialties. Higher agreeableness was associated with working in the private sector and specializing in general practice and occupational health. Lower agreeableness and neuroticism were associated with specializing in surgery. Higher extraversion was associated with specializing in pediatrics and change of specialty. Lower extraversion was associated with not practicing with patients.
The results showed distinctive personality traits to be associated with physicians' career and specialty choices after medical school independent of known confounding factors. Openness was the most consistent personality trait associated with physicians' career choices in terms of employment sector, amount of clinical patient contact, specialty choice and change of specialty. Personality-conscious medical career counseling and career guidance during and after medical education might enhance the person-job fit among physicians.
While characteristics of psychosocial work environment have traditionally been studied separately, we propose an alternative approach that treats psychosocial factors as interacting elements in ...networks where they all potentially affect each other. In this network analysis, we used data from a prospective occupational cohort including 10,892 participants (85% women; mean age 47 years) and repeated measurements of seven psychosocial work characteristics (job demands, job control, job uncertainty, team climate, effort-reward imbalance, procedural justice and interactional justice) assessed in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. Results from multilevel longitudinal vector autoregressive models indicated that job demands as well as interactional and procedural justice were most broadly associated with the subsequent perceptions of the work-related psychosocial factors (high out-Strength), suggesting these factors might be potentially efficient targets of workplace interventions. The results also suggest that modifying almost any of the studied psychosocial factors might be relevant to subsequent perceptions of effort-reward imbalance and interactional justice at the workplace.
Evidence on the intergenerational continuity of loneliness and on potential mechanisms that connect loneliness across successive generations is limited. We examined the association between loneliness ...of (G0) parents (859 mothers and 570 fathers, mean age 74 years) and their children (G1) (433 sons and 558 daughters, mean age 47 years) producing 991 parent-offspring pairs and tested whether these associations were mediated through subjective socioeconomic position, temperament characteristics, cognitive performance, and depressive symptoms. Mean loneliness across parents had an independent effect on their adult children's experienced loneliness (OR = 1.72, 95% CI 1.23-2.42). We also found a robust effect of mothers' (OR = 1.64, 95% CI 1.17-2.29), but not of fathers' loneliness (OR = 1.47, 95% CI 0.96-2.25) on offspring's experienced loneliness in adulthood. The associations were partly mediated by offspring depressive (41-54%) and anxiety (29-31%) symptoms. The current findings emphasize the high interdependence of loneliness within families mediated partly by offspring's mental health problems.
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