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Psychological distress has been associated with the pathogenesis and progression of coronary heart disease (CHD) but little is known about the determinants of distress as a coronary risk factor. Although it has become unfashionable to focus on personality factors since research on Type A behaviour yielded inconsistent findings, personality may comprise a major explanatory factor of individual differences in stress-related CHD. This article focuses on Type D - the distressed - personality, which describes patients who experience increased negative emotions and tend to inhibit the expression of these emotions in social interactions.

The article reviews research on Type D personality in the context of CHD.

Accumulating evidence indicates that cardiac patients with the Type D personality are at increased risk for cardiovascular …