Analysis of Personality Traits in Patients with Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Fatima Roso-Bas,Leyre Bento,Ines Herraez,Blanca Sanchez-Gonzalez,Raquel Rodriguez,Catalina Vallespir,Francesc Garcia-Pallarols,Irache Aguirre,Pilar Garcia-Dilla,Francesca Rado,Antonio Gutierrez,Joan Bargay,Antonia Sampol,Maria Dolores Alonso-Llobregat,Antonio Salar

doi:10.3390/jcm10081631

Abstract

Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a highly-curable malignancy mostly affecting young people. As far as we know, there is no published study that has analyzed personality profiles in HL nor their potential role in lymphomagenesis, natural history, or response to treatment. We aim to explore the personality traits of HL patients, as well as the prevalence of mental disorders and suicide ideas. We retrospectively identified all alive HL patients from three centers (Son Espases and Son Llatzer University Hospitals and Hospital del Mar of Barcelona) for using NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Brief Form. Patients with HL showed significantly higher neuroticism scores and lower conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness. Considering maladaptive personality traits, HL patients showed higher levels of detachment and psychoticism. All of these translated into the fact that HL patients showed more than double the prevalence of mental illnesses (41%) and more than triple the prevalence of suicidal ideation or attempts than the general population (15 and 6%, respectively). An exploratory analysis of biomarkers associated with HL personality traits showed that higher scores of neuroticism correlated with more elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and red cell distribution width (RDW), suggesting a potential link between neuroticism and proinflammatory activity in HL.

Highlights

Considering potential biomarkers, we found that higher neuroticism scores were related to higher erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or red cell distribution width (RDW) levels
We found that patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) have significantly higher neuroticism levels, lower levels of responsibility, and a higher prevalence of mental illnesses compared to the general population
We present, for the first time, the presence of a differential profile of personality traits in HL when compared to the general population

Summary

Introduction

See [1,2] Another relevant object of study is the impact of personality on the quality of life, together with other psychological variables, such as the dispositional level of optimism [3] or depression and anxiety [4]. These findings compose theories that establish the association between cancer and personality, much remains to be discovered regarding the specific nature of that link

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