Washington, Nov 20 (IANS) People who keep their negative experiences bottled up are more likely to suffer from ill health.

Aline Pelle of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NOSR) discovered that heart failure patients with a negative outlook seldom voiced their complaints in the presence of physicians or nurses.

Pelle investigated such patients with a so-called type D personality -- people who never express negative experiences for the fear of being rejected by others.

The presence of D-type among cardiac patients is associated with anxiety and depression as well as reduced state of health. However, Pelle also described which processes might contribute to this.

Many D-type patients did not contact the physician or specialist nurse in the event of heart failure symptoms. Consequently, they were six times more likely to experience a worse state of health than non type-D counterparts.

Pelle established that not just the patient's personality but also that of the partner had a significant effect on the patient's mood. In particular, the combination within the couple proved to be particularly important.

Type-D patients with a non type-D partner reported the lowest marriage quality, even lower than type-D patients with a negatively oriented partner, said an NOSR statement.