A longitudinal study of personality traits, anxiety, and depressive disorders in young adults

ABSTRACT

Background

How personality traits, anxiety, and depressive disorders relate longitudinally has implications for etiologic research and prevention. We sought to determine how neuroticism and extraversion relate to first-onset anxiety and depressive disorders in young adults.

Design

An inception cohort of 489 university freshmen was followed for 6 years.

Method

Participants self-reported personality traits using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Anxiety and depressive disorders were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule.

Results

Baseline neuroticism predicted first-onset panic disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD), while introversion predicted first-onset agoraphobia (moderate–large effects). Participants who developed panic disorder, agoraphobia, GAD, or MDD had increases in neuroticism if the disorder was current at follow-up (moderate–large effects). Participants who developed MDD but were in remission by follow-up had a moderate increase in neuroticism.

Conclusions

High neuroticism in young adulthood is either a true risk factor, or marker of risk, for first-onset anxiety and depressive disorders, as is low extraversion for agoraphobia. The current data suggest large neuroticism “state” effects for panic disorder, agoraphobia, and MDD, and moderate “scar” effects from MDD. Though many clinicians and researchers regard personality traits simply as “vulnerability” factors, longitudinal analyses suggest additional complexity.

KEYWORDS:

• Longitudinal study
• personality
• anxiety disorders
• panic disorder
• agoraphobia
• major depressive disorder

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Everett Siegel as well as the comments of 2 anonymous reviewers that greatly helped shape the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclosure of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Health grants K23MH64543, K05 AA017242 and R37AA7231.