Personality as a predictor of coping efforts in patients with multiple sclerosis

The aim of the study was to explore personality traits as predictors of cop ing with disease-related distress in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). All patients with clinically definite MS in a city with a population of ap proximately 100 000 were asked to complete the NEO Personality Inventory an d a multidimensional coping inventory (COPE). There was on 83% response rat e yielding 49 patients for the study population and 49 controls, matched fo r age, gender and educational level to the MS-patients, were used as compar ison. Only Neuroticism correlated significantly with emotion-focused coping in both groups. Extraversion and Openness to Experience were linked to tas k-oriented coping strategies in normal controls but not in the MS-group. Ag reeableness was associated with avoidance-oriented coping strategies only i n the MS-group. Thus, the relation of certain personality characteristics t o the choice of strategies for coping with the disease-related distress app ear to differ from coping with stressful problems in everyday life. As disp ositional characteristics may interfere with adaptive coping responses, ana lysis of personality traits and coping strategies could contribute while at tempting to relieve the consequences of chronic disease on everyday life.