Journal of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology
Open Access

Abstract

Effects of Stress or Personality Types on Ocular Dryness, Dizziness, and Autonomic Nervous Dysfunction of Healthy Subjects in the Workplace

Kazuma Sugahara, Hirotaka Hara, Makoto Hashimoto, Yoshinobu Hirose, Ryo Suzuki and Hiroshi Yamashita

Objectives: Numerous epidemiologic studies have been published on the relation between coronary diseases and personalities associated with stress. However, few reports have been published about stress-related autonomic dysfunction in the fields of ophthalmology and otolaryngology. We investigated the relationship between autonomic nerve dysfunction and personality types.
Methods: The study group was comprised of 336 bank employees who completed a questionnaire that assessed personality type, daily anxieties, methods of relaxation, and other autonomic symptoms. The subjects were divided into three groups based on the frequencies with which they experienced each symptom. The scores of each questionnaire item were compared among the groups.
Results: The individuals who often complained of dry eye had higher scores related to the type A personality than those who did not complain of dry eye (p=0.0003). The individuals who often complained of vestibular dysfunction had higher scores related to the self-resistant type personality compared with those did not complain of those symptoms (p=0.004). Our results also showed correlations between the escape type personality and the frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms (p=0.007) and between the personality types associated with stress and the frequency of circulatory symptoms (type A personality, p=0.009; self-resistant type personality, p=0.003; escape type personality, p=0.01). The incidence of tinnitus was not related to personality type. Daily anxiety and methods of relaxation were not strongly correlated with the incidence of autonomic dysfunction.
Conclusions: We identified a correlation between stress and autonomic dysfunction. These results suggest that personality type affects subjects’ symptoms of autonomic dysfunction more strongly than daily anxiety or methods of relaxation.