Interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptomatology: examination of several personality-related characteristics as potential confounders in a racial/ethnic heterogeneous adult sample

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Haslyn ER Hunte, West Virginia University; Katherine King, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Margaret Hicken, University of Michigan; Hedwig Lee, University of Washington; Tene T. Lewis, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2013-11-20
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2013 Hunte et al.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
• Final Published Version (URL): http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/1084
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: BMC Public Health
• ISSN: 1471-2458
• Volume: 13
• Grant/Funding Information: The CCAHS study work was supported by Grants P50HD38986 and R01HD050467 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health, with additional support from the MacArthur Foundation (via Harvard University and the University of California, San Francisco) and the US Department of Justice (via Harvard University).; This work was supported in part by an appointment (King) to the Research Participation Program for the US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an interagency agreement between the US Department of Energy and the EPA.
• Keywords: Discrimination (psychology); Psychological; Personality; Depression; Stress
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health; Health Sciences, Mental Health

Abstract

Background Research suggests that reports of interpersonal discrimination result in poor mental health. Because personality characteristics may either confound or mediate the link between these reports and mental health, there is a need to disentangle its role in order to better understand the nature of discrimination-mental health association. We examined whether hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism, and self-esteem served as confounders in the association between perceived interpersonal discrimination and CESD-based depressive symptoms in a race/ethnic heterogeneous probability-based sample of community-dwelling adults. Methods We employed a series of ordinary least squares regression analyses to examine the potential confounding effect of hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism, and self-esteem between interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms. Results Hostility, anger repression, pessimism and self-esteem were significant as possible confounders of the relationship between interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms, together accounting for approximately 38% of the total association (beta: 0.1892, p < 0.001). However, interpersonal discrimination remained a positive predictor of depressive symptoms (beta: 0.1176, p < 0.001). Conclusion As one of the first empirical attempts to examine the potential confounding role of personality characteristics in the association between reports of interpersonal discrimination and mental health, our results suggest that personality-related characteristics may serve as potential confounders. Nevertheless, our results also suggest that, net of these characteristics, reports of interpersonal discrimination are associated with poor mental health. Keywords: Stress, Psychological, Discrimination (psychology), Depression, Personality