Association of personality traits with oral tumours- a cross sectional study

Aim: To assess the association of personality traits with oral tumours. Materials and methods: The sample comprised of 215 patients, attending outpatient department of a dental tertiary referral center of south India. Case and control - comparative cross sectional study was designed. Cases consisted of subjects (105) diagnosed with tumour of the oral cavity. Controls consisted of subjects (110) who do not have any tumour at the time of screening for oral diseases. The cases and controls were matched for age, sex, pernicious habits, spicy diet, medical history of syphilis, family history of occurrence of tumour and presence of sharp tooth in relation to tumour on oral examination. Eysenck’s personality questionnaire was used for categorising the personality trait viz. Psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism and lie scale. Statistical analysis was done using Pearson’s chi square test to find the association of personality types with tumours of the oral cavity. Results: The personality type neurotic and the combination of Psychotic neurotic, Psychotic ambivert neurotic lie were significantly higher among the cases. The personality type Average and the combinations of Ambivert average was significantly higher among the controls. Conclusion: Personality traits of a person and the combination of various traits are associated with occurrence of oral tumours.