Temperament and character predictors of depressed mood over a 4-year interval

Abstract

Background:The relationship between personality and depressed mood is not well understood. The present research sought to clarify the contributions of personality to an understanding of the development, course, and maintenance of depressed mood over time. . Results: Whereas three of the seven personality dimensions were significantly and uniquely associated with depressed mood at T 1 , only harm avoidance emerged as a significant unique positive predictor of depressed mood at T 2 . When participants were grouped according to the level of stability versus change in depressed mood during the 4-year period, reward dependence, self-directedness , and cooperativeness were found to be significantly lower among those low in depressed mood at T 1 who subsequently evidenced moderate to high levels of depressed mood at T 2 when compared to those with low depressed mood on both assessment occasions. Additional analyses indicated that those who evidenced moderate to high levels of depression at T 1 and T 2 were distinctly higher on harm avoidance and lower on self-directedness when compared to those who had consistently low or variable levels of depressed mood across the two assessment occasions. Conclusions: Findings from this research are discussed in terms of personality-related vulnerability and risk factors for future episodes of depressed mood. Depression and Anxiety 26:371-381, 2009.

Cloninger's temperament traits and inherited long QT syndrome

“…First, HA is associated with many mental factors that may increase the likelihood of symptoms. For instance, it is strongly associated with depressive mood [27] and depression [28][29][30]. Depression in turn has been connected to the risk of ventricular arrhythmias [31], while depressive symptoms have been shown to be related to increased arrhythmic risk among LQTS mutation carriers in the very same sample studied here [20].…”

Temperament and character as predictors of recurrence in remitted patients with major depression: A 4-year prospective follow-up study

“…The three dimensions of 'character' are SelfDirectedness (SD), Cooperativeness (C), and Self-Transcendence (ST). In previous studies among individuals sampled from the general population, future depression was predicted by high HA and P scores and low SD scores (Cloninger et al, 2006), high P scores and some facet scales into which HA and RD are subdivided (Elovainio et al, 2004), and only high HA (Farmer and Seeley, 2009). The study in a selected sample of Japanese university students indicated that low SD only emerged as a predictor of future depression (Naito et al, 2000).…”

“…The highest quartile was taken as the point of dichotomizing HA and the lowest quartile was taken for SD. The cut-off points in the present study were selected by applying the categorization method using quartile values (Farmer and Seeley, 2009). The Kaplan-Meier method (Kaplan and Meier, 1958) was used to compare the time to relapse of MDD patients with high HA and those with low HA.…”

Post-inflammatory fatigue in sarcoidosis: Personality profiles, psychological symptoms and stress hormones

“…For example, the interrelation of depressive mood and anxiety symptoms with Harm Avoidance has been confirmed in several studies [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Moreover, during infectious or inflammatory diseases, this constellation of symptoms may also encompass the symptom cluster of sickness behavior.…”