Horwood, Sharon, Anglim, Jeromy, Tooley, Greg · Psychology & health · 2016 · DOI
This study looked at whether certain personality traits (called Type D personality, which involves being prone to worry and keeping emotions to yourself) are more common in people with chronic illnesses like ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, and whether these traits affect health behaviors, social support, and symptom severity. Researchers surveyed 182 healthy people and 207 people with various chronic illnesses, and found that Type D personality was more common in the chronic illness groups. The study suggests that personality traits may influence how symptoms develop and how well people manage their conditions across different chronic diseases.
Understanding whether personality traits like Type D influence ME/CFS symptom severity, health behaviors, and social isolation could help clinicians identify patients at higher risk for poor outcomes and inform psychosocial interventions. The study's finding that personality factors relate similarly across ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and other chronic illnesses may validate psychological support as a common therapeutic element across diverse chronic conditions. This work highlights non-biomedical factors that may complement biomedical research in understanding disease burden.
This study does not establish that Type D personality causes ME/CFS symptoms or poor health outcomes—the cross-sectional design can only show correlations. It does not prove that psychological traits are the primary drivers of disease pathology; personality traits could be a response to chronic illness rather than a cause. The study also does not determine whether personality-targeted interventions would improve ME/CFS outcomes.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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Primary citation
Horwood, Sharon, Anglim, Jeromy, & Tooley, Greg (2016). Statistically modelling the relationships between Type D personality and social support, health behaviors and symptom severity in chronic illness groups.. Psychology & health. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2016.1167209
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-horwood-2016-statistically-modelling,
author = {Horwood, Sharon and Anglim, Jeromy and Tooley, Greg},
title = {Statistically modelling the relationships between Type D personality and social support, health behaviors and symptom severity in chronic illness groups.},
journal = {Psychology & health},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.1080/08870446.2016.1167209},
note = {PubMed: 26998656},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/horwood-2016-statistically-modelling},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/horwood-2016-statistically-modelling
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