The Five-Factor Model of Personality: strengths and limitations in predicting health status, sick-role and illness behaviour

The present research examined the extent to which the Five-Factor Model of Personality (i.e. Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) is related to health status, illness behaviour, and sick-role behaviour. Questionnaire data were collected from 706 adults (mean AGE=37 years) in a two-wave prospective study. The participants were administered a 79-item trait adjective checklist to measure the five-factors, a measure of life stress, and 10 measures of health status, illness behaviour, and sick-role behaviour. In assessing the impact of personality on health, multiple regression analyses suggested that (1) the five factors were related to health status independently, (2) the five factors-outcome relationships were found more often with the subjective health/wellness measures (e.g. affect), and (3) these latter relationships were attenuated when the wave one autoregressive variables were incorporated into the models. The findings suggest that researchers need to assess the impact of personality on health with and without the use of autoregressive variables.