Theories of personality traits and essential arterial hypertension: history and modern times

The paper analyzes the concepts of personality profiles and demonstrates the possibility of applying this approach to comparatively assessing the psychological characteristics of patients with essential arterial hypertension (EAH).

It sets forth the fundamentals of the concepts by F. Alexander, H.F. Dunbar, M. Friedman, and R. Rosenman, which emphasize the importance of emotional, personal, and behavioral factors for the etiology and pathogenesis of EAH and analyzes in detail the psychological study of the characteristics of the so-called type D (distressed) personality that is characterized by a combination of the predominance of negative emotions, social isolation, and inability to regulate these factors.

The authors present the results of their own empirical study of personal characteristics (through the Cattel's 16 personality factors questionnaire) in patients with office hypertension (OH) versus those with classical EAH and healthy individuals. OH patients are shown to be significantly less sociable, less emotionally stable, more overwrought and shy, and more prone to self-control and feelings of guilt. The experimental psychological study (by simulating of emotional stress and by using the modified variant of the procedure developed by S. Rosenzweig to examine frustration reactions) has revealed that the patients with OH tend to experience the most intense negative sthenic emotions and they significantly more frequently resort to repression of these emotions.

The findings prove that the EAH group is e heterogeneous and confirm the assumption that OH patients show negative affectivity and lower social activity.

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