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Meta-Analysis
. 2014 Mar;10(2):179-86.
doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2013.03.002. Epub 2013 May 21.

Personality and risk of Alzheimer's disease: new data and meta-analysis

Antonio Terracciano  1 , Angelina R Sutin  2 , Yang An  3 , Richard J O'Brien  4 , Luigi Ferrucci  3 , Alan B Zonderman  3 , Susan M Resnick  3
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Personality and risk of Alzheimer's disease: new data and meta-analysis

Antonio Terracciano et al. Alzheimers Dement. 2014 Mar.

Abstract

Background: We examine whether broad factors and specific facets of personality are associated with increased risk of incident Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a long-run longitudinal study and a meta-analysis of published studies.

Methods: Participants (n = 1671) were monitored for up to 22 years from a baseline personality assessment. The meta-analysis pooled results from up to five prospective studies (n = 5054).

Results: Individuals with scores in the top quartile of neuroticism (hazard ratio = 3.1; 95% confidence interval = 1.6-6.0) or the lowest quartile of conscientiousness (hazard ratio = 3.3; 95% confidence interval = 1.4-7.4) had a threefold increased risk of incident AD. Among the components of these traits, self-discipline and depression had the strongest associations with incident AD. The meta-analysis confirmed the associations of neuroticism (P = 2 × 10(-9)) and conscientiousness (P = 2 × 10(-6)), along with weaker effects for openness and agreeableness (P < .05).

Conclusions: The current study and meta-analysis indicate that personality traits are associated with increased risk of AD, with effect sizes similar to those of well-established clinical and lifestyle risk factors.

Keywords: APOE; Alzheimer's disease; Anxiety; Conscientiousness; Dementia; Depression; Meta-analysis; Neuroticism; Observational prospective study; Order; Self-discipline.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no financial or other conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cumulative hazard of incident AD clinical dementia associated with the low 25% and high 25% on neuroticism and conscientiousness, adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, and education. The group with average scores (25% to 75%) were included in the analyses but are not shown in the figure. For neuroticism, the low 25% N = 405, the high 25% N = 436. For conscientiousness, the low 25% N = 422, the high 25% N = 393.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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