Personality traits in patients with narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a lifelong disorder with the main symptoms of sleep attacks and cataplexy. In this study 49 narcoleptic patients were investigated with a battery of personality inventories, covering the following personality dimensions: anxiety-neuroticism, extraversion and socialization. The results were compared with three groups: normal subject, psychiatric inpatients with anxiety and outpatients with psychosomatic complaints. The main aim was to evaluate a clinical impression of a high degree of extraversion in narcoleptic patients, which according to Eysenck's model could be related to a disturbance in the arousal regulation. Narcoleptic patients had higher anxiety-neuroticism scores than normal individuals, particularly in terms of Somatic Anxiety. They had unexpectedly low scores in some socialization scales, and were contrary to our hypothesis slightly lower in the extraversion variables, than the comparison groups. The high scores in anxiety-neuroticism personality scales may depend on an anxiety-provoking effect of central stimulant drugs and/or a lability of the autonomic regulation associated with the disorder. Further, the strain caused by the narcoleptic symptoms may result in high scores in anxiety-neuroticism scales and low scores in socialization scales, via social-learning mechanisms. However, there may also be a coupling between the genetics of narcolepsy and biologically based personality traits.