Type-D Personality and Heart Disease: It Might Be ‘One Small Step’, but It Is Still Moving Forward: A Comment on Grande et al.

Excerpt

Since the landmark studies of the late 60s and early 70s, we as a field have tried to find the key psychosocial predictors of poorer cardiovascular outcomes. In the mid-90s, a new construct, type-D personality, was found to have significant predictive ability for mortality in patients with coronary heart disease [1]. This has led to a constant stream of original studies and reviews exploring the potential role of type-D personality in the progression of heart disease. Of particular note, there has been a recent spate of systematic reviews [2‐4] on the topic. In spite of this, the review by Grande et al. [5] truly provides an extension, not only through the inclusion of new studies, but also in its conceptualisation. Grande and colleagues have taken a rigorous and refined approach to assessing the impact of type-D personality on cardiac outcomes, which has created a number of interesting talking points. …