Personality traits, health behavior, and risk for cancer

Hansen, Pernille Envold; Floderus, Birgitta; Frederiksen, Kirsten; Johansen, Christoffer

doi:10.1002/cncr.20871

Cited by 52 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…The results of our earlier prospective cohort studies, however, do not support the hypothesis that personality traits measured by the Eysenck questionnaire are associated with risk for cancer (Schapiro et al, 2001;Nakaya et al, 2003;Hansen et al, 2005).…”

contrasting

confidence: 89%

Personality traits and cancer survival: a Danish cohort study

et al. 2006

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We conducted a population-based prospective cohort study in Denmark to investigate associations between the personality traits and cancer survival. Between 1976Between and 1977Between , 1020 residents of the Copenhagen County completed a questionnaire eliciting information on personality traits and various health habits. The personality traits extraversion and neuroticism were measured using the short form of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Follow-up in the Danish Cancer Registry for 1976 -2002 revealed 189 incidents of primary cancer and follow-up for death from the date of the cancer diagnosis until 2005 revealed 82 deaths from all-cause in this group. A Cox proportional-hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) of death from all-cause according to extraversion and neuroticism adjusting for potential confounding factors. A significant association was found between neuroticism and risk of death (HR, 2.3 (95% CI ¼ 1.1 -4.7); Linear trend P ¼ 0.04) but not between extraversion and risk of death (HR, 0.9 (0.4 -1.7); Linear trend P ¼ 0.34). Similar results were found when using cancer-related death. Stratification by gender revealed a strong positive association between neuroticism and the risk of death among women (Linear trend P ¼ 0.03). This study showed that neuroticism is positively associated with cancer survival. Further research on neuroticism and cancer survival is needed.

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contrasting

confidence: 89%

Personality traits and cancer survival: a Danish cohort study

et al. 2006

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“…In none did we find evidence for an independent link between psychological factors such as severe depression (Dalton et al, 2002), personality traits (Hansen et al, 2005) or stressful life events (Li et al, 2002;Dalton et al, 2004) and cancer risk. We conclude that there is no convincing evidence that psychological factors cause cancer.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 58%

Stressful life events and cancer risk

et al. 2006

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In a prospective cohort study in Denmark of 8736 randomly selected people, no evidence was found among 1011 subjects who developed cancer that self-reported stressful major life events had increased their risk for cancer. The assumption of an association between stress and cancer occurrence is popular in the lay public (Baghurst et al, 1992) and among cancer patients (Stewart et al, 2001) and the topic has received intensive research attention in the past. Positive associations between severe stressors (i.e., stressful life events) and cancer risk have frequently been reported from retrospective and casecontrol studies, whereas prospective studies with unbiased data sources for exposure assessment, such as administrative registers, have shown no association between stressors, like death of a spouse, divorce, death of a child or serious illness in a child, and the subsequent risk for cancer (Johansen and Olsen, 1997;Kvikstad et al, 1994).We investigated the association between self-reported experience of stressful life events and the risk for cancer. As opposed to many previous prospective studies (Johansen and Olsen, 1997;Li et al, 2002;Dalton et al, 2004), all analyses were adjusted for a number of lifestyle factors known to be associated with cancer risk. MATERIALS AND METHODSData were obtained from the Copenhagen City Heart Study (Appleyard et al, 1989;Schnohr et al, 2001), a population-based, randomly sampled cohort study which was initiated in 1976. The data for the study reported here stem from the third survey (1991 -1994), when a total of 10 135 people completed a questionnaire and attended a health examination (response rate, 61%). A cancer diagnosis before date of entry resulted in the exclusion of 589 people (6%) from the analysis. A further 810 (8%) were excluded because of missing data on at least one of the included variables, leaving 8736 (86%) eligible for the data analyses.Follow-up for cancer occurrence began on the date of the examination between 10 October 1991 and 16 September 1994, and ended on the date of diagnosis of a first primary cancer, emigration, death or 30 November 2002, whichever came first. Cancer cases were ascertained by linkage with the Danish Cancer Registry, which has registered all cases of malignant neoplasms in Denmark in a population-based system since 1942 (Jensen et al, 1985). Comprehensive evaluation has shown that the Danish Cancer Registry is 95 -99% complete and valid (Storm et al, 1997).Following the question 'Did you ever experience one of the following events?', all people completed a checklist of 12 stressful events. Five of these were job-related (job loss, prospect of promotion which never occurred, long-lasting or serious conflicts with colleagues, superiors or subordinates) and seven events referred to family and adult life (long-lasting or serious illness of a child, educational problems with children, conflicts with adult children, marital problems, personal illness or accidents, illness or death of a family member, economic problems). For the analyses, ...

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“…Psychological factors, such as certain personality traits, depression, and major life events, are thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer (Hansen et al, 2005). The results from retrospective and prospective studies support an association between the two personality traits -neuroticism and extraversion-and cancer risk (Kissen et al, 1969;Aarstad et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Since then, the results of several wellconducted prospective studies have not confirmed the association between personality traits such as extraversion, neuroticism, trait anxiety and cancer risk (Ratcliffe et al, 1995;Schapiro et al, 2001;Nakaya et al, 2003;Hansen et al, 2005). However, the majority of these studies had methodological limitations due to the small number of cases or the lack of powered analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%