[Personality characteristics of erectile dysfunction patients with different traditional Chinese medicine syndromes].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the correlation between personality characteristics and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes in ED patients. METHODS: We collected the general demographic data from 97 ED patients with different types of TCM syndromes, including the syndromes of liver-qi depression, fear-induced kidney injury, vital gate fire declination, heart and spleen deficiency, downward diffusion of damp-heat, yin-deficiency and fire-hyperactivity, and blood vessel stasis and obstruction. Using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), we analyzed the personality types of the patients by comparing their EPQ scores with those of the adult males in the national norm group. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found between the ED patients and the males in the national norm group in the EPQ scores on neuroticism (11.97 ± 5.58 vs 4.61 ± 2.93, P < 0.01) and extraversion-introversion (10.06 ± 3.66 vs 7.38 ± 2.85, P < 0.01). Different personality types were significantly associated with the TCM syndrome types of the ED patients (P < 0.01), choleric temperament and melancholic temperament correlated with the syndrome of liver-qi depression (P < 0.01), and sanguine temperament with that of fear-induced kidney injury (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: TCM syndrome differentiation has underlying correlations with personality characteristics. It is clinically feasible to divide ED into more subtypes based on correlation of the TCM syndrome differentiation with personality characteristics of the patient.