Background: Chronic diseases, such as chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), are associated with non-normative development of personality traits (Jokela et al., 2014). In other words, CRD may accelerate or decelerate age-related personality changes. This process could be partly explained by the inactive lifestyle that characterizes individuals with CRD. Indeed, prior results show that physical inactivity reinforces non-normative personality changes in general population (Stephan et al., 2018). But to date, no study has investigated this relation in CRD people specifically. The aim of this study was to test to what extent the inactive lifestyle of people with CRD reinforces the non-normative personality evolution.
 
Methods: Participants with CRD were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) sample (N = 1438, age = 69 ± 10, 62% of women). Physical inactivity was assessed four times between 2006 and 2020 to predict personality change during the same period. Covariates (i.e., age, sex, education, ethnicity) were evaluated at baseline.
 
Results: Controlling for demographic factors, multilevel analyses showed that higher physical inactivity in individuals with CRD is related to a steeper decline in extraversion (?=0.02, p<0.001) and agreeableness (?=0.01, p<0.01).
 
Conclusions: Inactive lifestyle in people with CRD may strengthen the non-normative evolution in personality traits. The present research indicates that interventions directed toward the promotion of physical activity may be promising to prevent non-normative personality changes in people with CRD.