An Investigation of the Three Factor Model of Personality and its Relationships with Clinical Characteristics in Major Mood Disorders

Background: Personality make individuals prone to particular affective states and therefore, it may have a role in the etiology of mood disorders. Although Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is. one of the most used personality instruments, few studies have studied mood disorders using this scale. The purpose of this study was to examine personality of patients with bipolar and major depressive disorder and to explore the probable relationship between personality and clinical presentation of the disorders. Methods: The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire- Abbreviated (EPQR-A) was administered to 60 bipolar patients, 50 unipolar patients, and 50 controls. Both bipolar and unipolar patients were in remission in the evaluation time. Hamilton Depression Scale(HDS) and Young Mania Scale (YMS) were administrated to the patients to evaluate the remission. The patients who scored on HDS<8 and YMS<6 were accepted as remitted patients. Clinical variables were obtained from structured evaluations of patients and their first degree relatives. Results: Bipolar patients scored significantly higher on extraversion and psychoticism than major depressive patients and healthy controls. The patients with major depressive disorder had significantly higher neuroticism scores than bipolar patients and healthy subjects. In addition, we observed significant associations between clinical features and personality in both groups of patients. The personality dimensions varied according to the presence of suicide attempt, psychotic episode and mixed episode. In addition, some numerical variables, such as illness duration, number of depression and mixed episode, were found to be associated with personality dimensions Conclusion: These results show that, the personality profile differs between patients with bipolar disorder and unipolar depression and healthy subjects and, may vary according to different clinical presentations. (Arc-hi-ves of Neu-ropsy-chi-atry 2013; 50: 15-22)