Regular Research ArticlesPersonality and All-Cause Mortality Among Older Adults Dwelling in a Japanese Community: A Five-Year Population-Based Prospective Cohort Study
Section snippets
Participants
The source of data for the present study was the Longitudinal Interdisciplinary Study on Aging conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.25, 26 The study aimed to clarify longitudinal changes in psychological and physical functions among middle-aged and elderly people dwelling in communities, and to explore healthy life styles and ways of coping with many of the challenges of old age (for example, stressful life events, chronic diseases, disabilities, and bereavement). The
RESULTS
After 5 years, of the 1,228 adults, 127 (10.3%, 73 men and 54 women) had died and 24 people (1.9%, 7 men and 17 women) had moved away from the target region and were lost to follow-up.
Table 1 shows the characteristics of the members in the follow-up cohort, collected in 2000, including age, proportion of women, number of years of education, proportion of living alone, presence of psychiatric problems, presence of chronic diseases, and the distribution of total scores of each personality scale.
DISCUSSION
Our study examined the association between the five major domains of personality traits and all-cause mortality among Japanese community-dwelling elderly, using a 5-year prospective cohort study design with mortality surveillance. Our findings indicate that, out of the five domains of personality traits, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness were associated with reduced mortality when adjusted for potential confounders.
Our results indicate that conscientiousness is a protective factor
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This work was supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No.16091216 and No.19790438).