Abstract
Abstract
Background: Various theories support an association between the development of hypertension and psychological factors.
Objective: To test the hypotheses that 1) personality factors were stable and 2) there were correlations between personality traits and blood pressure, heart rate and catecholamine’s at a 20-year follow up.
Methods: At entry and at follow-up, blood pressure, heart rate, and arterial plasma epinephrine and nor epinephrine concentrations were measured in 99 healthy men (age: 19.3 +/- 0.4 years, mean +/- SD) at rest, during a mental arithmetic test, and during a cold pressor test. Personality was measured with the Karolinska Scale of Personality (KSP).
Results: There was only a moderate stability of KSP over a 20 years period. Factor structure of KSP in 2005/2006 was not convincing, and several of the dimensions had quite poor internal consistency. The factor analysis was different from the original KSP. There were no significant correlations between the personality dimensions and the somatic variables or reactivity to stress for the same somatic variables between the two datasets. There was no significant correlation between the personality dimensions and the changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure during the period.
Conclusions: The stability of the KSP was limited. There were only minor significant correlations between different personality traits and the somatic variables between the two datasets. This could partly be related to the limited factor structure of KSP.