Exploring the retrospective and prospective associations between the big five personality traits and clinical diagnosis of angina in middle-aged and older adults.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the present research was to test the retrospective and prospective associations between the Big Five personality traits and clinical diagnosis of angina while controlling for demographic characteristics. METHODS: Data from middle-aged and older adults from a cohort study Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) were extracted and analyzed using binary logistic regressions (N = 10,124 for the retrospective study and N = 5485 for the prospective study). Personality was measured using a self-report 15-item version of the Big Five inventory between 2011 and 2012. Angina was measured by a self-report clinical diagnosis history question in each wave from until 2019. Covariates in our models included age, sex, income (monthly), education, and marital status. RESULTS: Neuroticism was positively related to the likelihood of clinical angina diagnosis in both the retrospective (OR = 1.22, 95% C.I. [1.11, 1.34]) and the prospective (OR = 1.52, 95% C.I. [1.19, 1.94]) study whereas Extraversion had a positive association with odds of angina (OR = 1.52, 95% C.I. [1.17, 1.97]) in the prospective study only. The negative association between Openness and clinical angina diagnosis in the cross-sectional analysis is borderline significant (OR = 0.91, p = 0.048, 95% C.I. [0.83, 1.00]). CONCLUSION: Our research indicated that personality traits are associated with the risk of angina. These findings emphasize the importance of considering personality traits in understanding the etiology of angina and potentially informing personalized prevention and intervention strategies.

Understanding the longitudinal associations between e-cigarette use and general mental health, social dysfunction and anhedonia, depression and anxiety, and loss of confidence in a sample from the UK: A linear mixed effect examination.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to the longitudinal associations between e-cigarette use and general mental health, social dysfunction & anhedonia, depression & anxiety, and loss of confidence in a sample from the UK. METHODS: We analyzed data of 19,706 participants from Wave 9 (collected from 2017 to 2018) and Wave 10 (collected from 2018 to 2019) of the Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study using a confirmatory factor analysis, linear mixed effect model, and one-sample t-tests. RESULTS: We found that there is a significant time by e-cigarette use status interaction on mental health issues (b = 0.32, p < 0.001, 95 % C.I. [0.15, 0.49]), social dysfunction & anhedonia (b = 0.36, p < 0.001, 95 % C.I. [0.18, 0.54]), and loss of confidence (b = 0.24, p < 0.01, 95 % C.I. [0.06, 0.41]). Indeed, participants who became e-cigarette smokers at Wave 10 had worse mental health (t(107) = 2.64, p < 0.01, 95 % C.I. [0.07, 0.48], Cohen's d = 0.28), social dysfunction & anhedonia (t(107) = 3.16, p < 0.01, 95 % C.I. [0.12, 0.52], Cohen's d = 0.32), and loss of confidence (t(107) = 2.08, p < 0.05, 95 % C.I. [0.01, 0.37], Cohen's d = 0.19) comparing to one year ago. LIMITATION: Limitations of this study included its self-report measures, unclassified e-cigarette type, limited generalizability to other populations, and lack of experimental manipulations. CONCLUSION: We revealed longitudinal associations between e-cigarette initiation and adverse general and dimensions of mental health except for depression and anxiety, which have significant implications for public health, specifically in terms of e-cigarette product regulation and advertising.

Understanding Cognitive Deficits in People with High Blood Pressure.

High blood pressure is associated with an elevated risk of dementia. However, much less is known about how high blood pressure is related to cognitive deficits in domains including episodic memory, semantic verbal fluency, fluid reasoning, and numerical ability. By analyzing data from 337 participants (57.39% female) with a history of clinical high blood pressure diagnosis with a mean age of 48.78 ± 17.06 years and 26,707 healthy controls (58.75% female) with a mean age of 45.30 ± 15.92 years using a predictive normative modeling approach and one-sample t-tests, the current study found that people with high blood pressure have impaired immediate (t(259) = -4.71, p < 0.01, Cohen's d = -0.08, 95% C.I. [-0.11, -0.05]) and delayed word recall (t(259) = -7.21, p < 0.01, Cohen's d = -0.11, 95% C.I. [-0.15, -0.08]) performance. Moreover, people with high blood pressure also exhibited impaired performance in the animal naming task (t(259) = -6.61, p < 0.0001, Cohen's d = -0.11, 95% C.I. [-0.15, -0.08]), and number series (t(259) = -4.76, p < 0.01, Cohen's d = -0.08, 95% C.I. [-0.11, -0.05]) and numeracy tasks (t(259) = -4.16, p < 0.01, Cohen's d = -0.06, 95% C.I. [-0.09, -0.03]) after controlling for demographic characteristics. Clinicians and health professionals should consider including these tasks as part of the neuropsychological assessment for people with high blood pressure, to detect their cognitive deficits. Moreover, they should also come up with ways to improve cognitive performance in people with high blood pressure.

Age and mental health moderate the association between environmental concern (EC) and smoking frequency: smoking as a polluting behavior.

It is well-recognized that smoking is detrimental to the environment. However, much less is understood about smoking behavior from an environmental perspective with a focus on environmental concern (EC). This study aims to establish the association between EC and smoking frequency in smokers and test whether age and mental health moderate such an association. Obtained by analyzing data using regressions on smokers (N = 3,599) from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which is a representative sample in the UK, the results revealed that age and mental health moderate the association between EC and smoking frequency. This association is important to understand because smoking pollutes the environment, and very few studies have looked at smoking behavior from an environmental perspective.

Asthma Moderates the Association between the Big Five Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction.

The current study aimed to examine whether asthma moderates the association between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. By analyzing data from 3934 people with asthma (40.09% males) with a mean age of 49.2 (S.D. = 16.94) years old and 22,914 people without asthma (42.9% males) with a mean age of 45.62 (S.D. = 17.25) years old using a hierarchical regression and multiple regressions, the current study found that asthma significantly moderates the link between Neuroticism and life satisfaction and Openness and life satisfaction after controlling for other covariates. Specifically, Neuroticism was negatively related to life satisfaction whereas Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion were positively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without asthma. However, the negative association between Neuroticism and life satisfaction and the positive association between Openness and life satisfaction were stronger in people with asthma compared to people without asthma.

Establishing the associations between the Big Five personality traits and self-reported number of close friends: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study.

Close friends are important across the life span, who spend time together, provide support, and share happiness. But what determines the number of close friends one would have? One of the most important factors would be personality traits, which capture the most basic differences among individuals in terms of how they feel, think, and behave. This report aimed to establish the associations between the Big Five personality traits and the number of close friends cross-sectionally and longitudinally. By analyzing a cross-sectional (N = 32, 990) and longitudinal dataset (N = 22, 383) from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), the current report found that Neuroticism has a negative connection with the number of close friends, whereas Agreeableness, Openness, and Extraversion were positively connected to the number of close friends in the cross-sectional study. In the longitudinal study, Openness was positively associated with changes in the number of close friends.

Diabetes Moderates the Link between Personality Traits and Self-Rated Health (SRH).

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study is to explore the relationship between personality traits and self-rated health (SRH) in individuals with diabetes, while also comparing these associations with a group of healthy controls. METHODS: The data for this study were obtained from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), comprising a sample of 1860 diabetes patients and 12,915 healthy controls who were matched in terms of age and sex. Hierarchical linear regression was utilized to analyze the data. The analysis included demographic variables such as age, sex, monthly income, highest educational qualification, marital status, and psychological distress assessed through the GHQ-12, personality traits, including Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, and diabetes status (0 for diabetes patients, 1 for healthy controls) as predictors. Interactions between personality traits and diabetes status were also included as predictors, with SRH serving as the dependent variable. Additionally, separate multiple regression analyses were conducted for diabetes patients and healthy controls, incorporating demographic variables, psychological distress, and personality traits as predictors, while SRH remained the dependent variable. RESULTS: The findings of this study indicate that diabetes significantly moderates the association between Neuroticism and SRH. Specifically, both Neuroticism and Extraversion were negatively associated with SRH, whereas Openness and Conscientiousness exhibited a positive association with SRH in healthy controls. However, among diabetes patients, only Conscientiousness showed a positive association with SRH. CONCLUSION: Personality traits predict SRH in people with and without diabetes differently. Healthcare professionals and clinicians should try to come up with ways that improve SRH and thus better outcomes in diabetes patients based on the findings from the current study.

Factor Structure of the GHQ-12 and Their Applicability to Epilepsy Patients for Screening Mental Health Problems.

Epilepsy, a severe neurological disorder impacting approximately 50 million individuals worldwide, is associated with a high prevalence of mental health issues. However, existing research has predominantly examined the relationship between epilepsy and depression or anxiety, neglecting other dimensions of mental health as assessed by factor scores from the general health survey (GHQ), such as the GHQ-12. This study aimed to explore how epilepsy affects both general mental health and specific dimensions of mental health. By employing a factor analysis and a predictive normative modeling approach, the study examined 426 epilepsy patients and 39,171 individuals without epilepsy. The findings revealed that epilepsy patients experienced poorer general mental health and specific aspects of mental health. Consequently, this study highlights the validity of GHQ-12 as a measure of mental health problems in epilepsy patients and emphasizes the importance of considering the impact of epilepsy on various dimensions of mental health, rather than focusing solely on depression or anxiety. Clinicians should incorporate these study results into the development of interventions aimed at enhancing mental well-being in epilepsy patients, ultimately leading to improved outcomes.

Understanding the Role of Cancer Diagnosis in the Associations between Personality and Life Satisfaction.

Life satisfaction refers to the degree a person enjoys their life. An integrated account of life satisfaction is discussed in the literature, which proposes that life satisfaction is made up of personality traits and areas of life satisfaction (e.g., satisfaction with health, job, and social life). In addition, disruptions in one domain (e.g., health) may disrupt the association between personality traits and life satisfaction. The current research was interested in if clinically diagnosed cancer could influence the association between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. The current study analyzed data from 1214 people with a diagnosis of cancer (38.55% males) with an average age of 59.70 (S.D. = 15.53) years and 13,319 people without a cancer diagnosis (38.13% males) with an average age of 59.97 (S.D. = 11.10) years who participated in Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). For the first time, our study revealed that cancer markedly influences the relationship between Agreeableness and life satisfaction, after accounting for demographic variables. Neuroticism was negatively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without clinically diagnosed cancer, whereas Agreeableness and Extraversion were positively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without clinically diagnosed cancer. Openness and Conscientiousness were positively related to life satisfaction in people without cancer but were not significant predictors in people with cancer. Health professionals should develop strategies and interventions by fostering personality traits, including Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, while reducing Neuroticism.

Self-rated health (SRH) partially mediates and associations between personality traits and life satisfaction in older adults.

It is established that personality traits contribute to life satisfaction but why they are connected are far less understood. This research report tested if self-rated health (SRH) which is one's subjective ratings of their health and has a high predictivity of actual health mediates the associations between the Big Five model of personality and life satisfaction in a cohort (N = 5,845) of older adults from the UK. By using Pearson's correlation analysis and mediation analysis, the current research reported positive correlations between Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, SRH, and life satisfaction. However, Neuroticism was negatively correlated with SRH and life satisfaction. The main findings were that SRH partially mediates the associations between all traits in the Big Five and life satisfaction in older adults. This study began novel exploration on if SRH could explain the connections between the Big Five and life satisfaction. Results revealed SRH could partially explain these associations in all traits. These results may offer additional support to recently developed integrated account of life satisfaction, which argues that there are no single determinants of life satisfaction. Rather, life satisfaction is made up by many factors including but not limited to personality and health.

Using GHQ-12 to Screen Mental Health Issues in People with Emphysema.

Although previous studies have investigated the presence of psychometric comorbidities in individuals with emphysema, our understanding of the impact of emphysema on general mental health and specific dimensions of mental health, such as social dysfunction and anhedonia, depression and anxiety, and loss of confidence, remains limited. This research aims to examine the influence of emphysema on general mental health and its dimensions using the GHQ-12 assessment. By employing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the predictive normative approach, and one-sample t-test, we analyzed data from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), including 97 individuals clinically diagnosed with emphysema and 8980 individuals without a clinical diagnosis of emphysema. The findings of this study indicate that individuals with clinically diagnosed emphysema experience poorer general mental health (t(96) = 8.41, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.12, 95% C.I. [0.09, 0.15]), increased levels of social dysfunction and anhedonia (t(96) = 6.02, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.09, 95% C.I. [0.06, 0.11]), heightened depression and anxiety (t(96) = 7.26, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.11, 95% C.I. [0.08, 0.14]), as well as elevated loss of confidence (t(96) = 6.40, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.09, 95% C.I. [0.07, 0.12]). These findings suggest the need for intervention programs aimed at improving the mental health of individuals with emphysema.

Can the Big Five personality traits predict ever chance and 7-year risk of clinically diagnosed chronic bronchitis in middle-aged and older adults?

OBJECTIVE: Chronic bronchitis refers to a chronic condition that is characterized by long-term inflammation of the bronchi. It is of great importance to understand the contributing risk factors for chronic bronchitis because it is associated with adverse outcomes such as healthcare burden and mortality. We aimed to understand if the personality traits could predict ever and the 7-year risk of clinically diagnosed chronic bronchitis in a large cohort of participants from the UK. METHODS: We analyzed data from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which consists of 15,387 middle-aged or older participants for the cross-sectional analysis and 8783 middle-aged or older adults for the longitudinal analysis using two binary logistic regressions. RESULTS: We found that Neuroticism (OR = 1.36, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [1.23, 1.51]), Conscientiousness (OR = 0.87, p = 0.014, 95% C.I. [0.78, 0.97]), and Extraversion (OR = 1.15, p = 0.009, 95% C.I. [1.04, 1.29]) are related to a higher chance of ever clinically diagnosed chronic bronchitis. However, Agreeableness and Openness were not related to the chance of ever clinically diagnosed chronic bronchitis. Moreover, Conscientiousness (OR = 0.72, p = 0.012, 95% C.I. [0.55, 0.93]) was related to a lower risk of future clinical diagnosis of chronic bronchitis whereas Extraversion (OR = 1.35, p = 0.024, 95% C.I. [1.04, 1.76]) was associated with a higher risk of future chronic bronchitis. However, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness were not related to change of ever clinically diagnosed chronic bronchitis. CONCLUSION: We showed that personality can identify people who are at greater risk of chronic bronchitis, which has translational utility for healthcare of middle-aged and older adults.

Big Five personality predict epilepsy diagnosis in 7 years.

Objective: Recently, there is growing interest in investigating how personality traits could predict a subsequent diagnosis of various diseases. Regarding epilepsy, there is only preliminary evidence based on cross-sectional studies linking personality traits to epilepsy, hence, emphasizing the need for longitudinal studies. The aim of the current study is to assess if the Big Five personality traits can predict the risk of an epilepsy diagnosis. Methods: The current study analyzed data from 17,789 participants who participated in Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) at Wave 3 (collected between 2011 and 2012) and Wave 10 (collected between 2018 and 2019). The mean age was 47.01 (SD = 16.31) years and were 42.62% male. Two binary logistic regressions were used by including age, monthly income, highest educational qualification, legal marital status, residence, and standardized personality traits scores at Wave 3 as predictors for a clinical diagnosis of epilepsy at Wave 10 for males and females, respectively. Results: There were 175 participants (0.98%) with epilepsy and 17,614 participants (99.02%) without epilepsy at Wave 10. Results of the binary regression analyses revealed that Neuroticism is positively related to the risk of an epilepsy diagnosis in males (OR = 1.32, p = 0.04, 95% CI [1.01, 1.71]) but not in females 7 years after Wave 3 at Wave 10. However, other personality traits including Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion were not significant predictors of epilepsy diagnosis. Conclusion: These findings suggested that personality traits might enhance our understanding of psychophysiological associations in epilepsy. Neuroticism might be a relevant factor that should be taken into account in epilepsy education and treatment. Moreover, sex differences must be taken into account.

Personality Traits Predict Self-Rated Health (SRH) in Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Patients and Healthy Controls.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present study is to examine the association between Big Five personality traits and self-rated health (SRH) among individuals with coronary heart disease (CHD), and to compare this relationship with that of healthy control participants, which is of importance as SRH can be a determinant of outcomes. METHODS: The current study used data from 566 participants with CHD with a mean age of 63.00 (S.D. = 15.23) years old (61.13% males) and 8608 age- and sex-matched healthy controls with a mean age of 63.87 (S.D.= 9.60) years old (61.93% males) from the UKHLS. The current study used predictive normative modelling approaches, one-sample t tests, a hierarchical regression, and two multiple regressions. RESULTS: The current study found that CHD patients have significantly lower Conscientiousness (t(565) = -3.84, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.28, -0.09], Cohen's d = -0.16) and SRH (t(565) = -13.83, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.68, -0.51], and Cohen's d = -0.58) scores compared to age and sex-matched healthy controls. Moreover, health status (controls vs. CHD patients) moderated the links between Neuroticism, Extraversion and SRH. Specifically, Neuroticism (b = -0.03, p < 0.01, 95% C.I. [-0.04, -0.01]), Openness (b = 0.04, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.02, 0.06]), and Conscientiousness (b = 0.08, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.06, 0.10]) were significant predictors of SRH in healthy controls, whereas Conscientiousness (b = 0.08, p < 0.05, 95% C.I. [0.01, 0.16]) and Extraversion (b = -0.09, p < 0.01, 95% C.I. [-0.15, -0.02]) were significant predictors of SRH in CHD patients. CONCLUSION: Based on the close associations between personality traits and SRH, and the subsequent impact on patient outcomes, the results of this study should be taken into consideration by clinicians and health professionals when developing tailored treatment and intervention programs for their patients.

Associations between Personality Traits and Areas of Job Satisfaction: Pay, Work Itself, Security, and Hours Worked.

Although studies have widely explored the connections between personality traits and job satisfaction, less is known about how personality relates to aspects of job satisfaction. The objective of this study was to explore the relationships between personality traits and various areas of job satisfaction, including pay, work, security, and hours worked. This study used ordinal regressions to analyze data from 6962 working individuals from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The results showed that Neuroticism consistently has a negative association with all aspects of job satisfaction, whereas Agreeableness and Conscientiousness have positive associations with job satisfaction. Extraversion had a weak negative association with satisfaction with total pay. These findings imply that personality may play a crucial role in shaping areas of job satisfaction.

Tactile localization on stretched skin.

The ability to localize touch on the skin is an important aspect of tactile perception. As our limbs move, the skin stretches flexibly, and research has found that signals specifying stretch affect perception of limb posture. Skin stretch also distorts the relative spatial position of different locations on the skin, posing potential problems for tactile localization. Here, we investigated the effects of skin stretch using an established test of tactile localization on the hand. Twenty participants completed a tactile localization task in no-stretch and stretched conditions, respectively, after giving informed consent. The current study found a clear distal and radial bias in both the no-stretch condition and the stretched condition. Indeed, the distal bias was even larger in the stretched condition than at baseline. Critically, however, this change in distal bias was entirely accounted for by changes in the actual location of stimulus as a result of skin stretch, with no corresponding change in the judged location. Thus, the somatosensory system appears to disregard stretch when calculating the location of tactile stimuli. These results mirror recent findings showing that tactile distance perception also fails to take skin stretch into account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding the effect of angina on general and dimensions of psychological distress: findings from understanding society.

Background: The current study aimed to examine how the general and dimensions of psychological distress are affected by angina. Methods: First, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to produce the three-factor solution of the GHQ-12. Second, a predictive normative modeling approach to predict the expected scores for 1,081 people with angina based on a model trained on demographics from 8,821 age and sex-matched people without angina. Finally, one-sample t-tests were used to determine the differences between the actual psychological distress scores and expected psychological distress scores in participants with angina. Results: There were three underlying structures of the GHQ-12 labeled as GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia), GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety), and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence). Moreover, participants with angina had more psychological distress as indicated by the GHQ-12 summary score (Cohen's d = 0.31), GHQ-12A (Cohen's d = 0.34), GHQ-12B (Cohen's d = 0.21), and GHQ-12C (Cohen's d = 0.20) comparing to controls. Conclusion: The current study implies that GHQ-12 is a valid measure of psychological distress in people with angina, and there is a need to consider the dimensions of psychological distress in angina rather than solely focusing on certain dimensions of psychological distress such as depression or anxiety issues in people with angina. Clinicians should come up with interventions to reduce psychological distress in people with angina which can then lead to better outcomes.

Understanding the associations between personality traits and mental health in people with epilepsy and healthy controls.

Objectives: The aim of the current study was to test how epilepsy could moderate the associations between Big Five personality traits and mental health. Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed data from Understanding Society: UK Household Longitudinal (UKHLS), which relies on a complex multi-stage stratified sampling design. Personality traits were measured by the Big Five inventory whereas mental health where measured by the GHQ-12. A hierarchical regression and two multiple regressions were performed on 334 people with epilepsy with a mean age of 45.14 ± 15.88 years old (41.32% males) and 26,484 healthy controls (42.5% males) with a mean age of 48.71 ± 17.04 years old. Results: Neuroticism was positively related to worse mental health in both people with epilepsy and healthy controls with a stronger relationship in people with epilepsy, but Conscientiousness was negatively related to worse mental health in both people with epilepsy and healthy controls. Moreover, Openness and Extraversion were negatively related to worse mental health in healthy controls but not in people with epilepsy. Conclusion: Personality traits are closely related to mental health in both people with epilepsy and healthy controls. Clinicians should use findings from this study to detect people with epilepsy who may be at high risk of poor mental health based on their personality traits.

Personality traits and dimensions of mental health.

Individuals are different in a relatively constant pattern of thoughts, feeling, and behaviors, which are called personality traits. Mental health is a condition of well-being in which people may reach their full potential and deal effectively with stress, work efficiently, and contribute to their communities. Indeed, the link between personality and mental health as indicated by the 12-item version of the general health questionnaires (GHQ-12) has been well-established according to evidence found by decades of research. However, the GHQ-12 comprises many questions asking about different dimensions of mental health. It is unclear how personality traits relate to these dimensions of mental health. In this paper, we try to address this question. We analyzed data from 12,007 participants from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and generalized linear models. We replicated the factor structure of GHQ-12 labeled as GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia; 6 items), GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety; 4 items), and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence; 2 items). Moreover, Neuroticism was positively related to all dimensions of mental health issues, Extraversion was negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety), Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence), and Openness was negatively related to GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety). These results contribute to theories including the predisposition/vulnerability model, complication/scar model, pathoplasty/exacerbation model, and the spectrum model, which propose that personality traits are linked to mental health and explained possible reasons. Psychologists may use results from this study to identify individuals who may be at high risk of developing various non-psychiatric mental health issues and intervene to avoid negative outcomes.

Mental Health in Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Patients: Findings from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).

OBJECTIVES: Mental health conditions in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) are closely related to clinical outcomes. Thus, this study's goal is to investigate how CHD affects general and specific aspects of mental health. METHODS: We analyzed data from Wave 10 Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which were collected between 2018 and 2019. After removing people who had missing data, there were 450 participants who indicated that they have CHD, and 6138 age- and sex-matched healthy participants indicated that they were not clinically diagnosed with CHD. RESULTS: The main findings were that participants with CHD had more mental health problems, as shown by the GHQ-12 summary score (t (449) = 6.00, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.20, 0.40], Cohen's d = 0.30), social dysfunction and anhedonia, (t (449) = 5.79, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.20, 0.40], Cohen's d = 0.30), depression and anxiety (t (449) = 5.04, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.15, 0.33], Cohen's d = 0.24), and loss of confidence (t (449) = 4.46, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [0.11, 0.30], Cohen's d = 0.21). CONCLUSION: This study implies that GHQ-12 is a valid assessment of mental health problems in CHD patients, and there is a need to consider how different aspects of mental health are affected by CHD rather than solely focusing on depression or anxiety problems alone in patients with CHD.