DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, HOSTILITY, AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

This study assessed the relationship of depression, anxiety, and hosti lity to physical health in a multicultural student population (N = 106 ). When controlling for a variety of demographic and health risk facto rs (viz., age, sex, body mass, smoking, alcohol, salt, caffeine, and e xercise), hostility, depression, and anxiety were related to higher re ported incidences of physical symptoms and somatic illness. Depression and hostility had the strongest relationships with physical health, a lthough the most striking single relationship was between depression a nd illness. Results suggest that it may be premature to focus our atte ntion on hostility in research on the personality-illness relationship . They also suggest that the health behavior model of the relationship between personality and disease does not provide an adequate explanat ion, since negative affect was significantly associated with illness e ven when controlling for a variety of health risk factors.