Browsing by Subject "harminvälttäminen"

Objective: Low-grade inflammation underlies a wide variety of long term diseases. Serum level of C-reactive protein (CRP) is a widely used biomarker of inflammation. Its associations with different risk factors of inflammation e.g. psychological stress, depression and health behavior are well known. Previous research suggests that personality is a potential factor underlying several of these risk factors of inflammation. According to Cloninger's model of temperament and character, temperament trait harm avoidance is related to vulnerability for psychological stress and character trait self-directedness is related to maturation of personality and various aspects of well-being. However little is known about the relationship between these personality traits and inflammation. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether harm avoidance and self-directedness was able to predict changes on serum levels of CRP in prospective 11-year follow-up study design. Methods: The present study included 1191 participants (aged 35-50 years) from the longitudinal and population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns -study (CRYFS) started in 1980. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between CRP and personality dimensions harm avoidance and self-directedness assessed by Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) in 2001 and 2012. CRP levels from 2012 assessment were used as a dependent variable and mean scores from 2001 and 2012 studies of harm avoidance and self-directedness were used as independent variables in analysis. CRP levels from 2001 were used for baseline adjustment of CRP. Other covariates adjusted in analysis were assessed in 2012. Results and conclusions: The results showed that only self-directedness was weakly associated with serum levels of CRP, partly contrary to prime hypothesis. However, the main finding was that neither harm avoidance nor self-directedness predicted changes on serum levels of CRP over eleven years after adjusting CRP baseline and covariates. The current findings are mainly inconsistent with previous research. These findings suggest that harm avoidance and self-directedness are not independent risk factors of inflammation from an epidemiological perspective.