The relationship of personality to the presence of rheumatoid factor in asymptomatic relatives of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Psychosom Med 27: 350

Two groups of asymptomatic female relatives of patients with rheumatoid arthritis were compared psychologically by means of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The results indicated a greater incidence of emotional decompensation in those relatives lacking rheumatoid factor. It is speculated that emotional dis-turbance in conjunction with rheumatoid factor may lead to rheumatoid disease. xVs Moos HAS POINTED OUT,1 the retro-spective correlation of personality pat-terns or emotional conflicts with an organic disease inevitably leads to ques-tions of whether the illness, especially when a chronic one, might induce personality change; whether the observed factors might only reflect what th