Personality and coping among congestive heart failure patients

The main aim of the present study was to discover if coping styles are merely reflections of personality in a sample of congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. The sample consisted of 119 clinically stable CHF patients (34 females, 85 males) with symptomatic heart failure. Individualsʹ coping styles were only moderately associated with the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism. Coping styles were considerably less consistent than neuroticism over a 2-year period. Coping styles accounted for a significant amount (9.3%) of unique variance in depression when controlled for personality traits. In contrast to previous findings, our results suggest that coping styles are not merely reflections of personality. This might be due to the fact that the sample consisted of individuals who were under relatively severe strain.