Background: Stress cardiomyopathy (SCM) can be triggered by emotional events. Recently, type D personality has been established as an independent predictor of acute cardiac adverse events.
Purpose: We sought to examine whether type D personality can be identified in SCM patients.
Methods: A case-control study with 37 SCM patients, 37 myocardial infarction (AMI) patients, who both experienced emotional triggering, and 37 SCM patients without emotional triggers was performed. The DS14 and Interview for Recent Life Events were administered.
Results: Twenty-eight (76 %) SCM emotional trigger patients were categorized as type D compared with 13 (43 %) SCM patients without emotional trigger and 12 (32 %) AMI patients (p < 0.001). SCM patients with emotional triggers had higher scores on the social inhibition subscale than the other patient groups.
Conclusions: The present study highlights the possible link between type D, with a specific key role for social inhibition component, and increased biological reactivity to acute emotional stress.