The Relationship Between Personality, Supportive Transactions and Support Satisfaction, and Mental Health of Patients with Early Rheumatoid Arthritis. Results from the Dutch Part of the Euridiss Study

Abstract

The relationship between personality, supportive transactions and support satisfaction, and mental health of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis. Results from the Dutch part of the Euridiss study Suurmeijer, TPBM; van Sonderen, Frideric; Krol, B; Doeglas, DM; van den Heuvel, Wilhelmus; Sanderman, Robbert Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. ABSTRACT. The relationships between two personality characteristics (neuroticism, extraversion), three types of supportive transactions (emotional support, social companionship, instrumental support) and satisfaction with these transactions, and two aspects of mental health (feelings of anxiety and depressive mood) were studied among 280 patients with early rheumatoid arthritis. Structural equation modeling of the relevant variables showed that people with a more neurotic personality profile showed more anxiety and depressed feelings. Extraversion had no direct effect on depression or anxiety. Companionship, both transactions and satisfaction, had an independent positive effect on depression but not on anxiety. The effect of emotional support ran via social companionship: more emotional support (both transactions and satisfaction) was expressed in companionship leading to a less depressed mood. Finally, more depressed people received more instrumental supportive transactions while more satisfaction with this type of supportive transactions was related to less anxiety. Apart from the disturbing effect of a neurotic personality profile on mental health, the results once more underscore the importance of social companionship as a multifunctional activity for people's mental health. Maintaining this type of relationships despite a disabling condition gives people the opportunity to derive rewards that otherwise could not or only with more difficulty be achieved.

Coping mediates the influence of personality on life satisfaction in patients with rheumatic diseases

“…Extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness positively affect life satisfaction via more active problem solving, less depressive coping, and/or more active search for social support. This conforms to previous studies that found the effects of neuroticism and extraversion to be mediated by coping [14,15] and extends this knowledge to two more Big 5 personality traits. Only for openness for experience no mediating effects could be found, probably pointing to the somewhat different nature of this personality dimension [21].…”

“…All Big 5 personality traits and nearly all coping strategies showed univariate associations with life satisfaction. With regard to personality, the results are in line with previous studies investigating neuroticism and extraversion in patients with rheumatic diseases [13][14][15], and with the assumption that openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are also related to adjustment to rheumatic diseases. Turning to coping, the findings support previous research in patients with rheumatic diseases [10][11][12] and emphasize the relevance of coping in adjustment to rheumatic diseases.…”

“…Their differential choice model (a mediation model) implies that personality determines the choice of coping strategies, which in turn have an impact on outcomes. Previous research findings lend some support to the notion that personality and coping play a role in adjustment to rheumatic diseases [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…Results indicate that neuroticism is associated with higher and extraversion with lower levels of psychological distress and that these associations are partly mediated by coping [13][14][15].…”

Social support and psychological distress in rheumatoid arthritis: a 4-year prospective study

“…Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that social support is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and a number of studies have explored its facets and its specific functions [7,14,26]. Furthermore, an important distinction has to be made in cases where social support can be addressed either as a structure reflecting one's rootedness in the social system or from a functional point of view [27].…”