Temperament and risk of disability pensions in early middle age: A 22-year follow-up study of the northern Finland birth cohort 1966

Objectives

We examined whether temperament traits, individual biological tendencies to react to stimuli, predict disability pensions.

Methods

We surveyed the temperament traits (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence and persistence) of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study participants (n = 4713) when they were 31 years of age. We used Cox regression to calculate the hazard ratios and their 95 % confidence intervals for incident disability pensions until the age of 52, which we obtained from national registers. Potential covariates included marital status, education, work type, average wage, perceived health, and mental disorder and musculoskeletal diagnoses at the age of 31.

Results

We recorded 412 disability pensions (163 for men and 249 for women) during the 22-year follow-up. Higher harm avoidance increased the risk of disability pension with a hazard ratio (95 % confidence interval) of 1.05 (1.02–1.07) and 1.05 (1.03–1.08) for men and women, respectively. Some subscales of harm avoidance, reward dependence and novelty seeking also predicted disability pension.

Conclusions

Higher harm avoidance and its subscales in particular predicted disability pensions in a 22-year follow-up period up to mid-adulthood, although the impact was relatively modest.