Personality and depressive symptoms: individual participant meta-analysis of 10 cohorts

Summary

Background: Personality is suggested to be a major risk factor for depression but large-scale individual participant meta-analyses on this topic are lacking.
Method: Data from 10 prospective community cohort studies with 117,899 participants (mean age 49.0 years; 54.7% women) were pooled for individual participant meta-analysis to determine the association between personality traits of the five-factor model and risk of depressive symptoms.
Results: In cross-sectional analysis, low extraversion (pooled standardized regression coefficient (B) = –.08; 95% confidence interval = –0.11, –0.04), high neuroticism (B = .39; 0.32, 0.45), and low conscientiousness (B = –.09; –0.10, –0.06) were associated with depressive symptoms. Similar associations were observed in longitudinal analyses adjusted for baseline depressive symptoms (n = 56,735; mean follow-up of 5.0 years): low extraversion (B = –.03; –0.05, –0.01), high neuroticism (B = .12; 0.10, 0.13), and low conscientiousness (B = –.04; –0.06, –0.02) were associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms at follow-up. In turn, depressive symptoms were associated with personality change in extraversion (B = –.07; 95% CI = –0.12, –0.02), neuroticism (B = .23; 0.09, 0.36), agreeableness (B = –.09; –0.15, –0.04), conscientiousness (B = –.14; –0.21, –0.07), and openness to experience (B = –.04; –0.08, 0.00).
Conclusions: Personality traits are prospectively associated with the development of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms, in turn, are associated with changes in personality that may be temporary or persistent.