Personality traits and the prevalent myocardial infarction – cross-sectional study among population aged 50 years or older in Europe

Background: Myocardial infarction (MI) is a serious condition that increases with age and is caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. It is of value to identify the reasons why some are affected, and possibly, why different personality traits can be associated with increased or decreased risk for myocardial infarction. Methods: : This is a cross-sectional study based on data collected in 2017 from the European survey wave 7 of Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Individuals aged >50 years were included in the study. The big five personality traits, i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism constituted the main exposure variables and were analyzed separately. The value of each personality trait variable was divided into tertile with higher score indicating a higher level. The primary outcome was MI. The association between each personality trait and MI were examined by Logistic regression models which was used to estimate the Odds Ratios (ORs) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI). Results: : There were 6336 participants reported having a MI in this study. Neuroticism was significantly associated with the increased OR of 1.16 (95% CI: 1.09 - 1.24) for middle level of neuroticism and 1.39 (95% CI: 1.30 - 1.49) for the high level of neuroticism. Higher level of agreeableness is significantly associated with the decrease odds of MI. Conclusions: : This cross-sectional study is based on a survey of a population aged 50 years and older in Europe. A higher level of neuroticism was associated with the increased odds of MI. A higher level of agreeableness is associated with decreased odds of MI. It has been demonstrated that different personalities are associated with different odds of suffering MI and seems to play a role as a risk factor.