Effect of a personality-informed intervention on changes in quality of life in pulmonary rehabilitation

Personality-informed interventions can improve the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions (Kolanowski et al., 2011). In pulmonary rehabilitation (PR), Caille et al. (2021) demonstrated that a high level of openness to experience, a personality trait, is associated with a greater risk of non-response in terms of quality of life (QOL). Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of a personality-informed intervention based on openness to experience on QOL in PR and test the mediating role of disease-related fears in this intervention. 136 patients admitted to PR were randomly assigned to an experimental (EG) or control (CG) group. Participants in the EG received information tailored to the characteristics of a high level of openness to experience, while those in the CG received neutral information. Sociodemographic and clinical variables, personality traits, QOL (via a global score and three sub-dimensions), and disease-related fears were assessed at PR admission (T1). QOL and disease-related fears were measured again at the end of the PR (T2). Both groups showed no significant differences at baseline. Mixed ANOVA revealed a significant improvement in global QOL according to PR (<italic>F</italic>=27.99, <italic>p</italic><.001) but no significant difference between the two groups. However, the EG showed a greater improvement in the "activities" sub-dimension of QOL than the CG (<italic>F</italic>=4.33, <italic>p</italic><.05). Mediation analyses showed that the evolution of disease-related fears in the EG partly explains this improvement. This study highlights that personality-informed intervention can improve a sub-dimension of QOL in PR. The effects of the intervention on disease-related fears could partly explain the benefits.