People with negative emotions may experience more health problems

Nov 19 2009

People who experience a lot of negative emotions and do not express these experience more health problems, says Dutch researcher Aline Pelle. She discovered that heart failure patients with a negative outlook reported their complaints to a physician or nurse far less often. The personality of the partner can also exert a considerable influence on these patients.

Aline Pelle investigated patients with a so-called type D personality. These people experience a lot of negative emotions and do not express these for fear of being rejected by others. It was already known that such a type of personality in heart failure patients is associated with anxiety and depression and a reduced state of health. However, Aline Pelle also described which processes might contribute to this.

Many of the patients with a negative outlook were found not to contact the physician or specialist nurse in the event of heart failure symptoms. As a result of this they were six times more likely to experience a worse state of health than non-type D heart failure patients.

Better not a cheerful partner

Pelle established that not just the patient's personality but also that of the partner had a significant effect on the patient's mood. In particular, the combination within the couple proved to be particularly important. Type D patients with a non-type D partner reported the lowest marriage quality, even lower than that of type D patients with a partner with just as negative an outlook.

No cause for death

Although a type D personality is associated with a range of negative health outcomes, Pelle's results did not demonstrate a correlation with an increased risk of dying from heart failure. This observation refutes the results from a previous study.

Aline Pelle's research was part of Johan Denollet's Vici project. He received a Vici grant from NWO's Innovational Research Incentives Scheme in 2004.

NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research)