Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:04:29.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Inheritance of Neurotic Traits: A Twin Study of the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. P. R. Young
Affiliation:
The Maudsley Hospital, S.E.5
G. W. Fenton
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, S.E.5; The Maudsley Hospital, S.E.5
M. H. Lader
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council, Institute of Psychiatry, S.E.5

Extract

The Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (M.H.Q.) is a self-rating scale designed to provide rapid quantification of common symptoms and traits relevant to the conventional clinical categories of psychoneurotic illness. The inventory comprises 48 brief questions for each of which two or three simple alternative answers are provided. By use of a standard key, the following six subtest scores are easily calculated: free-floating anxiety (FFA), phobic anxiety (PHO), somatic concomitants of anxiety (SOM), obsessional traits and symptoms (OBS), depression (DEP), and hysterical personality traits (HYS). In that the questionnaire provides an approximation to what would be expected at a clinical level from a diagnostic psychiatric interview, it has advantages over other questionnaires which incorporate essentially non-clinical constructs of personality functioning.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Broadhurst, P. L. (1967). ‘The biometrical analysis of behavioural inheritance.’ Sci. Prog. Oxf., 55, 123–39.Google Scholar
Brown, F. W. (1942). ‘Heredity in psychoneuroses.’ Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 35, 785–90.Google Scholar
Burt, G. (1966). ‘The genetic determination of differences in intelligence: a study of monozygotic twins reared together and apart.’ Brit. J. Psychol., 57, 137–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cockett, R. (1969). ‘A short diagnostic self-rating scale in the pre-adult remand setting.’ Brit. J. Psychiat., 115, 1141–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, M. E. (1951). ‘The high familial prevalence of neurocirculatory asthenia (anxiety neurosis, effort syndrome).’ Amer. J. hum. Genet., 3, 126–58.Google Scholar
Crown, S., and Crisp, A. H. (1966). ‘A short clinical diagnostic self-rating scale for psychoneurotic patients. The Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (M.H.Q.).’ Brit. J. Psychiat., 112, 917–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crown, S., Duncan, K. P., and Howell, R. W. (1970). ‘Further evaluation of the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (M.H.Q.).’ Brit. J. Psychiat., 116, 33–7.Google Scholar
Darlington, C. D. (1954). ‘Heredity and environment.’ Caryologia, Suppl. to Vol. 6, pp. 370–81. Proceedings of the 9th Internat. Congress of Genetics, Bellagio, Italy, 1953.Google Scholar
Drillien, C. M. (1964). In The Growth and Development of Prematurely Born Children, London: Livingstone.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J., and Eysenck, S. B. G. (1964). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Inventory, London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J., and Eysenck, S. B. G. (1971). ‘Crime and personality: item analysis of questionnaire responses.’ Brit. J. Crim., 11, 4962.Google Scholar
Eysenck, S. B. G. (1971). Personal Communication.Google Scholar
Holzinger, K. J. (1929). ‘The relative effect of nature and nuture influences on twin differences.’ J. educ. Psychol., 20, 241–8.Google Scholar
Karn, M. N. (1952). ‘Birth weight and gestation time in relation to maternal age, parity and infant survival.’ Ann. Eugen., 16, 147–64.Google Scholar
Kock, H. L. (1966). In Twins and Twin Relations, Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Luxenburger, H. (1930). ‘Psychiatrische-neurologische Zwillings-pathologie.’ Zentralbl. f.d. ges. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 56, 145–80.Google Scholar
Newman, H. H., Freeman, F. N., and Holzinger, K. J. (1937). In Twins: A Study of Heredity and Environment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Osborne, R. H., and De George, F. V. (1959). In Genetic Basis of Morphological Variation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Price, B. (1950). ‘Primary biases in twin studies. A review of prenatal and natal difference-producing factors in monozygotic pairs.’ Amer. J. hum. Genet., 2, 293352.Google ScholarPubMed
Price, J. S. (1968). ‘The genetics of depressive behaviour.’ In Recent Developments in Affective Disorders. Ed. Coppen, A. and Walk, A., pp. 3754. British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 2.Google Scholar
Race, R. R., and Sanger, R. (1968). In Blood Groups in Man. 5th Edition, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Russell, E. M. (1961). ‘Cerebral palsied twins.’ Arch. Dis. Childh., 36, 328–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, J. P., and Fuller, J. L. (1965). Genetics and Social Behaviour of the Dog. Chicago.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1962) Monozygotic Twins Brought up Apart and Brought up Together. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1971). ‘Heredity and Psychological abnormality.’ In Handbook of Abnormal Psychology, Ed. Eysenck, H. J. 2nd Edition. London: Pitman Medical.Google Scholar
Shields, J. and Slater, E. (1966). ‘La similarité du diagnostic chez les jumeaux et le problème de la spécificité biologique dans les névroses et les troubles de la personnalité.’ Evolut. psychiat., 31, 441–51.Google Scholar
Slater, E., (1961). The Thirty-fifth Maudsley Lecture. ‘Hysteria 311.’ J. ment. Sci., 107, 359–81.Google Scholar
Slater, E., and Shields, J. (1969). ‘Genetical aspects of anxiety.’ In Studies of Anxiety. Ed. Lader, M. H., pp. 6271. British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 3.Google Scholar
Smith, S. M., and Penrose, L. S. (1955). ‘Monozygotic and dizygotic twin diagnosis.’ Ann. hum. Genet., 19, 273–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vandenberg, S. G. (1966). ‘Contributions of twin research to psychology.’ Psychol. Bull., 66, 327–52.Google Scholar
Vandenberg, S. G. (1967). ‘Hereditary factors in normal personality traits (as measured by inventories).’ In Recent Advances in Biological Psychiatry, Ed. Wortis, J. Vol. IX; pp. 65104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.