The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events

Aristeidis Petrakis; Eugenia Mylona; Konstantina Kourou; Georgios Manikis; Haridimos Kondylakis; Kostas Marias; Paula Poikonen-Saksela; Panagiotis Simos; Evangelos Karademas; Ketti Mazzocco; Ruth Pat-Horenczyk; Berta Sousa; Dimitrios I. Fotiadis

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8

The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events

Aristeidis Petrakis^*, Eugenia Mylona, Konstantina Kourou, Georgios Manikis, Haridimos Kondylakis, Kostas Marias, Paula Poikonen-Saksela, Panagiotis Simos, Evangelos Karademas, Ketti Mazzocco, Ruth Pat-Horenczyk, Berta Sousa, Dimitrios I. Fotiadis

^*Corresponding author for this work

The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

Abstract

Using longitudinal data from Portugal, Italy, Finland, and Israel, this article attempts to explore the causal relationship between mental health and the Big Five personality traits of breast cancer patients with the appearance of adverse life events. The main conclusion is that patients with high scores in the Big Five personality traits index enjoy better mental health status than patients with low scores in that index. In addition, there is a significant negative correlation between mental health deterioration and personality traits as an index and as individual traits. The negative impact on the mental health of cumulative adverse life events is significant and cannot be moderated by personality traits. Single negative life events have a positive correlation with mental health status deterioration, though not all of them are significant and only work-related problems can moderated significantly by high scores in the personality trait index. Moreover, the most important control variable are the state of exercise, which if it changes from active to not active causes a significant drop in the mental health score and cancer stage. Lastly, this causal relationship is validated by the prediction accuracy of AI/ML models.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings
Editors	Haridimos Kondylakis, Andreas Triantafyllidis
Publisher	Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages	110-141
Number of pages	32
ISBN (Print)	9783031855719
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8
State	Published - 2025
Event	18th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2024 - Heraklion, Crete, Greece Duration: 17 Sep 2024 → 18 Sep 2024

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST
Volume	611 LNICST
ISSN (Print)	1867-8211
ISSN (Electronic)	1867-822X

Conference

Conference	18th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2024
Country/Territory	Greece
City	Heraklion, Crete
Period	17/09/24 → 18/09/24

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2025.

Keywords

Adverse life events
Artificial Intelligence
Big Five Personality traits
Breast cancer
Causal inference
HADS
Machine Learning
Mental Health
Panel Data
Predictive models

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8

Cite this

Petrakis, A., Mylona, E., Kourou, K., Manikis, G., Kondylakis, H., Marias, K., Poikonen-Saksela, P., Simos, P., Karademas, E., Mazzocco, K., Pat-Horenczyk, R., Sousa, B., & Fotiadis, D. I. (2025). The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events. In H. Kondylakis, & A. Triantafyllidis (Eds.), Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings (pp. 110-141). (Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST; Vol. 611 LNICST). Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8

Petrakis, Aristeidis ; Mylona, Eugenia ; Kourou, Konstantina et al. / The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events. Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings. editor / Haridimos Kondylakis ; Andreas Triantafyllidis. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2025. pp. 110-141 (Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST).

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abstract = "Using longitudinal data from Portugal, Italy, Finland, and Israel, this article attempts to explore the causal relationship between mental health and the Big Five personality traits of breast cancer patients with the appearance of adverse life events. The main conclusion is that patients with high scores in the Big Five personality traits index enjoy better mental health status than patients with low scores in that index. In addition, there is a significant negative correlation between mental health deterioration and personality traits as an index and as individual traits. The negative impact on the mental health of cumulative adverse life events is significant and cannot be moderated by personality traits. Single negative life events have a positive correlation with mental health status deterioration, though not all of them are significant and only work-related problems can moderated significantly by high scores in the personality trait index. Moreover, the most important control variable are the state of exercise, which if it changes from active to not active causes a significant drop in the mental health score and cancer stage. Lastly, this causal relationship is validated by the prediction accuracy of AI/ML models.",

keywords = "Adverse life events, Artificial Intelligence, Big Five Personality traits, Breast cancer, Causal inference, HADS, Machine Learning, Mental Health, Panel Data, Predictive models",

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Petrakis, A, Mylona, E, Kourou, K, Manikis, G, Kondylakis, H, Marias, K, Poikonen-Saksela, P, Simos, P, Karademas, E, Mazzocco, K, Pat-Horenczyk, R, Sousa, B & Fotiadis, DI 2025, The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events. in H Kondylakis & A Triantafyllidis (eds), Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST, vol. 611 LNICST, Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, pp. 110-141, 18th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2024, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 17/09/24. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8

The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events. / Petrakis, Aristeidis; Mylona, Eugenia; Kourou, Konstantina et al.
Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings. ed. / Haridimos Kondylakis; Andreas Triantafyllidis. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2025. p. 110-141 (Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST; Vol. 611 LNICST).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Petrakis A, Mylona E, Kourou K, Manikis G, Kondylakis H, Marias K et al. The Causal Effect of Personality Traits on the Mental Health in Breast Cancer Patients Under the Occurrence of Negative Life Events. In Kondylakis H, Triantafyllidis A, editors, Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 18th EAI International Conference, PervasiveHealth 2024, Proceedings. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. 2025. p. 110-141. (Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST). doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-85572-6_8