Personality and coping: their relationship with lifestyle risk factors for cancer

This study investigates associations between personality, coping and established lifestyle risk factors for cancer (including smoking, alcohol intake, low intake of fruit and vegetables and lack of physical activity). Analyses were based upon cross-sectional data obtained in the first part of a prospective cohort study on psychosocial factors and cancer risk. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The study population (2514 men and women aged 20-65 years) originates from three municipalities (Amsterdam, Doetinchem, Maastricht) in The Netherlands. In univariate analyses, life satisfaction, John Henryism, neuroticism, extraversion, hostility and sense of coherence were found to relate to several lifestyle risk factors for cancer. However, meaningful associations mainly concern smoking habits, among women. When personality characteristics and coping were considered simultaneously, extraversion, neuroticism, and mastery were found to be positively and independently associated with smoking initiation among women, whereas life satisfaction, submissiveness, John Henryism and neuroticism were found to be related to smoking cessation. In conclusion, a number of personality characteristics were found to be independently associated with smoking, the major risk factor for cancer, but only for women. Alcohol intake, consumption of fruit and vegetables and lack of physical activity were associated less consistently with either personality or coping.