The type-D scale (DS14) - Norms and prevalence of type-D personality in a population-based representative sample in Germany

The DS14 (Denollet, 2005) is the most accepted and widely used diagnostic instrument for the assessment of the type-D pattern, which has been established as a predictor of adverse clinical events and cardiac prognosis in patients with heart disease. Despite an increasing number of applications of the DS14 in non-cardiac and healthy samples, psychometric properties of the DS14 item and subscale scores have not been tested explicitly for non-cardiac samples, and population-based norms have been missing until now. The present study aimed to analyse the psychometric properties of the item and subscale scores and the factorial structure of the DS14, as well as to examine prevalence rates and to provide population-based norms for the German general population from a population-based representative sample of 2495 subjects. The analyses document sound psychometric properties. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated the best fit for a two-factor structure. The prevalence of the type-D personality in the German population was 31%. In comparison, most studies report lower prevalence rates in cardiac patients. The present findings support the use of the DS14 to assess the traits of negative affectivity and social inhibition and to classify type-D personality in epidemiologic research and individual diagnostics as well. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.