Type D personality in Poland: Validity and application of the Polish DS14

Type D personality (increased negative emotions paired with emotional non-expression) is an emerging risk indicator in cardiovascular disease (CVD), associated with poor patient-centered outcomes, mortality and morbidity. Little is known about the cross-cultural utility of the construct, as it has primarily been used in the Western European setting. We applied the Type D Scale to a large sample of healthy and CVD patients to validate the DS14 in Poland. DS14 was used in the sample comprised 1154 persons, healthy and CVD. The internal consistency of the Polish version of the DS14 was good with Cronbach's alpha of 0.86 for negative affectivity (NA) and 0.84 for social inhibition (SI). The 2-factor structure of the DS14 was confirmed both with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Both of the DS14 subscales were internally consistent and stable over time. Using the standardized cut-off ≥10 for both NA and SI to identify those with a Type D personality, the prevalence was 72.1% in CVD patients and 34.8% in healthy. The Type D personality construct, as assessed with the DS14, seems to be applicable to the Polish setting, as the Polish DS14 was shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument.