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Interpersonal Discrimination and Depressive Symptomatology: Examination of Several Personality-Related Traits as Confounders in a Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneous Adult Sample
Citation:
Hunte, H., K. King, M. Hicken, H. Lee, AND T. Lewis. Interpersonal Discrimination and Depressive Symptomatology: Examination of Several Personality-Related Traits as Confounders in a Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneous Adult Sample. BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. BioMed Central Ltd, London, Uk, 13(1):1084, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
This study contributes to the existing literature by examining if, and to what extent, several personality-related traits possibly confound the relationship between interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms in a racial/ethnic heterogeneous probability-based sample of community-dwelling adults.
Description:
Objective: Because personality dispositions may magnify the impact of daily stressors on health, the uncertainty associated with reports of discrimination continues to be a methodological concern. As such, we examined if, and to what extent, hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism and self-esteem serve as possible confounders in the relationship between perceived discrimination and CESD-based depression symptoms in a racial/ethnic heterogeneous probability-based sample of community-dwelling adults. Methods: We used multivariable ordinary least squares regression analyses controlling for several sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Hostility, anger repression, pessimism and self-esteem were significant as possible confounders of the relationship between discrimination and depression, accounting for approximately 38% of the total effect (beta: 0.1892, p < 0.001) between the two. However, discrimination remained a positive predictor of depression symptoms (beta: 0.1176, p < 0.001). Conclusion: These results are noteworthy for several reasons. First, this study is among the first to characterize possible confounding effects of more than two personality-related traits between discrimination and depression symptoms. An additional strength of this study is the generalizability of the results, given that we used a representative, multi-ethnic sample of community dwelling adults, unlike previous studies.