Cited by 361Personality Traits and PsychologyMental Health Research TopicsAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Neuroticism's prospective association with mental disorders halves after adjustment for baseline symptoms and psychiatric history, but the adjusted association hardly decays with time: a meta-analysis on 59 longitudinal/prospective studies with 443 313 participants

Jeronimus, B. F., Kotov, R., Riese, H., Ormel, J.·2016·Psychological Medicine

Abstract

BACKGROUND: This meta-analysis seeks to quantify the prospective association between neuroticism and the common mental disorders (CMDs, including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse) as well as thought disorders (psychosis/schizophrenia) and non-specific mental distress. Data on the degree of confounding of the prospective association of neuroticism by baseline symptoms and psychiatric history, and the rate of decay of neuroticism's effect over time, can inform theories about the structure of psychopathology and role of neuroticism, in particular the vulnerability theory. METHOD: This meta-analysis included 59 longitudinal/prospective studies with 443 313 participants. RESULTS: The results showed large unadjusted prospective associations between neuroticism and symptoms/diagnosis of anxiety, depression, and non-specific mental distress (d = 0.50-0.70). Adjustment for baseline symptoms and psychiatric history reduced the associations by half (d = 0.10-0.40). Unadjusted prospective associations for substance abuse and thought disorders/symptoms were considerably weaker (d = 0.03-0.20), but were not attenuated by adjustment for baseline problems. Unadjusted prospective associations were four times larger over short (<4 year) than long (⩾4 years) follow-up intervals, suggesting a substantial decay of the association with increasing time intervals. Adjusted effects, however, were only slightly larger over short v. long time intervals. This indicates that confounding by baseline symptoms and psychiatric history masks the long-term stability of the neuroticism vulnerability effect. CONCLUSION: High neuroticism indexes a risk constellation that exists prior to the development and onset of any CMD. The adjusted prospective neuroticism effect remains robust and hardly decays with time. Our results underscore the need to focus on the mechanisms underlying this prospective association.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0033291716001653

Cites

150 of 150 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Jeronimus, B. F., Kotov, R., Riese, H., & Ormel, J.
Affiliations
  • University Medical Center Groningen (NL)
  • Stony Brook University (US)
Corresponding author
Jeronimus, B. F.
Venue
Psychological Medicine
Published
2016-08-15
Volume
46
Issue
14
Pages
2883-2906
ISSN
  • 0033-2917 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-8978
OpenAlex
W2515058491
Cited by
360
References
149
Citations by year
2026: 34 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 82 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 4
FWCI
3.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Psychological Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (publishedVersion)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
neuroticism, common mental disorders, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, psychosis, schizophrenia, baseline symptoms, psychiatric history, confounding, vulnerability theory, prospective associations
MeSH terms
Neuroticism, Mental Disorders, Humans, Comorbidity, Disease Progression

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review