Ali Fakhari
1, Sanaz Norouzi
2*, Mohammad Zakarya Pezeshki
31 Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
2 School of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
3 Department of Social Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Type D personality is related to poor coronary heart disease prognosis, but there is no standard for assessing this Type of personality. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Persian version of 14-item Type D personality scale (DS14) among coronary heart disease patients. Methods and Materials: 198 coronary heart disease patients participated in study, thereforre, they all filled out the Persian version of DS14, and SF-36 Questionnaire. SPSS 17.0 software was used for data analyses and P-value<.05 was considered as statistically significant. Cronbach’s alpha was used to examine the internal consistency of the DS14. In order to determine validity of DS14, it was compared to SF-36. Results: With the standardized cut-off of NA≥10 and SI ≥10, 65.1% of the coronary heart disease patients in Iran were defined as having a Type D personality. The Cronbach's α coefficient for the negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI) subscales were 0.79 and 0.56, respectively, for the coronary heart disease patients. High internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha coefficient has been found to be 0.83 in patients for DS14 scale. Good convergent validity was shown by the expected correlations type D personality and depression (P<0.001), Interfere with daily activities (P=0.003), Fatigue (P=0.004), Nervousness (P<0.001). Conclusion: The Persian DS14 was a valid and reliable tool for identifying Type D personality. Patients with coronary heart disease showed higher rate of type D personality. Therefore, identifying Type D personality is important in clinical research and practice in cardiovascular disease.