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. 2022 Dec;272(8):1611-1620.
doi: 10.1007/s00406-021-01366-5. Epub 2022 Feb 10.

Investigating the phenotypic and genetic associations between personality traits and suicidal behavior across major mental health diagnoses

Janos L Kalman  1   2   3 Tomoya Yoshida  4 Till F M Andlauer  5   6 Eva C Schulte  7   8 Kristina Adorjan  7   8 Martin Alda  9 Raffaela Ardau  10 Jean-Michel Aubry  11   12 Katharina Brosch  13   14 Monika Budde  7 Caterina Chillotti  10 Piotr M Czerski  15 Raymond J DePaulo  16 Andreas Forstner  17   18   19 Fernando S Goes  16 Maria Grigoroiu-Serbanescu  20 Paul Grof  21   22 Dominik Grotegerd  23 Tim Hahn  23 Maria Heilbronner  7 Roland Hasler  11 Urs Heilbronner  7 Stefanie Heilmann-Heimbach  18 Pawel Kapelski  15 Tadafumi Kato  24 Mojtaba Oraki Kohshour  7   25 Susanne Meinert  23   26 Tina Meller  13   14 Igor Nenadić  13   14 Markus M Nöthen  18 Tomas Novak  27   28 Nils Opel  23 Joanna Pawlak  15 Julia-Katharina Pfarr  13   14 James B Potash  16 Daniela Reich-Erkelenz  7 Jonathan Repple  23 Hélène Richard-Lepouriel  11 Marcella Rietschel  29 Kai G Ringwald  13   14 Guy Rouleau  30 Sabrina Schaupp  7 Fanny Senner  7   8 Giovanni Severino  31 Alessio Squassina  31 Frederike Stein  13   14 Pavla Stopkova  27   28 Fabian Streit  29 Katharina Thiel  23 Florian Thomas-Odenthal  13 Gustavo Turecki  32 Joanna Twarowska-Hauser  15 Alexandra Winter  23 Peter P Zandi  16 John R Kelsoe  33 Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen), PsyCoursePeter Falkai  8 Udo Dannlowski  23 Tilo Kircher  13   14 Thomas G Schulze #  7   16   34 Sergi Papiol #  7   8   35
Collaborators, Affiliations

Investigating the phenotypic and genetic associations between personality traits and suicidal behavior across major mental health diagnoses

Janos L Kalman et al. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Personality traits influence risk for suicidal behavior. We examined phenotype- and genotype-level associations between the Big Five personality traits and suicidal ideation and attempt in major depressive, bipolar and schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia patients (N = 3012) using fixed- and random-effects inverse variance-weighted meta-analyses. Suicidal ideations were more likely to be reported by patients with higher neuroticism and lower extraversion phenotypic scores, but showed no significant association with polygenic load for these personality traits. Our findings provide new insights into the association between personality and suicidal behavior across mental illnesses and suggest that the genetic component of personality traits is unlikely to have strong causal effects on suicidal behavior.

Keywords: Bipolar disorder; Major depression; Personality; Polygenic score; Schizophrenia; Suicidal behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

Dr. Kato reports grants and personal fees from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), grants and personal fees from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), personal fees from Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd., personal fees from Eli Lilly Japan K.K., grants and personal fees from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., personal fees from GlaxoSmithKline K.K., personal fees from Taisho Pharma Co., Ltd., grants and personal fees from Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd., personal fees from Meiji Seika Pharma Co., Ltd., personal fees from Pfizer Japan Inc., personal fees from Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., grants and personal fees from Shionogi & Co., Ltd., personal fees from Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K., personal fees from Janssen Asia Pacific, personal fees from Yoshitomiyakuhin, personal fees from Astellas Pharma Inc., personal fees from Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim Co. Ltd., personal fees from MSD K.K., personal fees from Kyowa Pharmaceutical Industry Co., Ltd., grants and personal fees from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., personal fees from Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., personal fees from Taisho Toyama Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., grants and personal fees from Eisai Co., Ltd., grants and personal fees from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, grants from Teijin Pharma, outside the submitted work. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Results of secondary phenotype-level analyses. For extraversion and neuroticism, which were significantly associated with suicidal ideation in the primary analyses, we conducted secondary analyses to investigate potential differences across the diagnostic spectrum. Results of the individual regression models can be found in Supplementary Table S7. Inverse variance-weighted meta-analysis p values that were significant after Bonferroni correction (α < 3.57 × 10–3) are indicated with an asterisk. Meta fixed, inverse variance-weighted fixed-effects meta-analysis; meta random, inverse variance-weighted random-effects meta-analysis; 95% CI, 95% confidence intervals (the 95% CIs were constrained to a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 1); OR, odds ratio (a higher OR indicates an association with suicidal ideation

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