Type D personality, temperament, and mental health in military personnel awaiting deployment

Abstract

Background: The Type D (distressed) personality refers to a general propensity to psychological distress defined by the combination of negative affectivity and social inhibition. Type D personality predicts poor mental and physical health in cardiac patients, but it has been argued that its assessment is affected by the state of illness. Therefore, validation of the Type D construct in healthy adults remains essential.

Purpose: The objectives of this study were (1) to validate Type D personality against temperament and character dimensions in young, healthy adults and (2) to investigate the association between Type D personality and pre-deployment mental health.

Method: Type D personality, temperament, and questionnaires on mental health were filled out by 86 healthy male Dutch military personnel before UN deployment to Afghanistan.

Results: Type D personality was present in 16% of healthy military personnel before deployment. The Type D components social inhibition (α = 0.89) and negative affectivity (α = 0.85) correlated positively with harm avoidant temperament (r = 0.66 and 0.46) and negatively with self-directed character (r = -0.33 and -0.57). In addition, these four traits loaded on the same broad personality dimension. Military men with a Type D personality not only reported significantly less self-directedness and more harm avoidance as compared to non-Type D men (p < 0.001) but also more symptoms of PTSD, general emotional distress, and hostility (all p < 0.012).

Conclusions: Type D personality was associated with harm avoidance, low self-directedness, and increased symptoms of PTSD and hostility in men awaiting deployment. This association was not caused by any somatic confounding in these young, healthy men.

Fig. 1

Differences in self-reported PTSD symptoms for Type D (black) versus non-Type D (striped) military personnel. PTSD subscales intrusion, avoidance, and hypersarousal. *p < .05, **p < .01. Mean + SEM are shown

Fig. 2

Differences in general distress and hostility for Type D (black) versus non-Type D (striped) military personnel. Left SCL-90 total score psychoneuroticism, right Cook–Medley hostility score. ***p < .001. Mean + SEM are shown