Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:07:51.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Personality and Symptom Pattern in Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

E. S. Paykel
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital and Medical School, London, S.W.17
G. L. Klerman
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
B. A. Prusoff
Affiliation:
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Summary

This paper reports relationships between symptoms and premorbid personality in a varied sample of depressed patients. Symptoms were rated by a psychiatrist at clinical interview; personality was rated by patients on self-report after clinical improvement, using the Maudsley Personality Inventory and an inventory of obsessive, hysterical and oral personality. Additional ratings on the latter were obtained at interview with a relative. The most prominent finding was that patients with premorbid neuroticism also showed a neurotic rather than an endogenous symptom pattern. Additional relationships were relatively weak but consistent with previous studies. Depressives with neurotic rather than endogenous symptom pattern showed more evidence of oral dependent personality and less obsessionality. Patients with hysterical personalities tended to be less severely ill and to show a pattern characterized by mixed depression and hostility with less evidence of anxiety.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

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

Carney, M. W. P., Roth, M. & Garside, R. F. (1965) The diagnosis of depressive syndromes and the prediction of ECT response. British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 659—74.Google Scholar
Chodoff, P. (1972) The depressive personality: a critical review. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 666—73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coppen, A. & Metcalfe, M. (1965) Effect of a depressive illness on MPI scores. British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 236—9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. (1959) The Manual of the Maudsley Personality Inventory, London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Fernando, S. J. M. (1966) Depressive illness in Jews and non-Jews. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 991—6.Google Scholar
Garside, R. F., Kay, D. W. K., Roy, J. R. & Beamish, P. (1970) MPI scores and symptoms of depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 429—32.Google Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1960) A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 23, 5662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Julian, T., Metcalfe, M. & Coppen, A. (1969) Aspects of personality of depressive patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 587—9.Google Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., Garside, R. F., Beamish, P. & Roy, J. R. (1969) Endogenous and neurotic syndromes of depression: a factor analytic study of clinical features. British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 377—88.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. & discipio, W. J. (1968) Eysenck Personality Inventory scores of patients with depressive illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 767—70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiloh, L. G. & Garside, R. F. (1963) The independence of neurotic depression and endogenous depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 451—63.Google Scholar
Lazare, A. & Klerman, G. L. (1968) Hysteria and depression: the frequency and significance of hysterical personality features in hospitalized depressed women. American Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 4856.Google Scholar
Lazare, A., Klerman, G. L. & Armor, D. J. (1966) Oral, obsessive and hysterical personality patterns. Archives of General Psychiatry, 14, 624—30.Google Scholar
Lazare, A., Klerman, G. L. & Armor, D. J. (1970) Oral, obsessive and hysterical personality patterns. Replication of factor analysis in an independent sample. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 7, 275—9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendels, J. & Cochrane, C. (1968) The nosology of depression: the endogenous-reactive concept. American Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 111.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S. (1971) Classification of depressed patients: a cluster analysis derived grouping. British Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 275—88.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S. Klerman, G. L. & Prusoff, B. A. (1970) Treatment setting and clinical depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 22, 1121.Google Scholar
Paykel, E. S. Klerman, G. L. & Prusoff, B. A. (1971) The endogenous-neurotic continuum in depression: rater independence and factor distributions. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 8, 7390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paykel, E. S. & Prusoff, B. A. (1973) Relationships between personality dimensions: neuroticism and extraversion against obsessive, hysterical and oral personality. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 12, 309—18.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, S. H. & Gudeman, J. E. (1967) The endogenous depressive pattern: an empirical investigation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 16, 241—9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenthal, S. H. & Klerman, G. L. (1966) Content and consistency in the endogenous depressive pattern. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 471—84.Google Scholar
Schwab, J. J., Bialow, M., Holzer, C. E., Brown, J. M. & Stevenson, B. E. (1967) Sociocultural aspects of depression in medical patients. II. Symptomatology and class. Archives of General Psychiatry, 17, 539—43.Google Scholar
Snaith, R. P., McGuire, R. J. & Fox, K. (1971) Aspects of personality and depression. Psychological Medicine, 1, 239—46.Google Scholar
Tonks, G. M., Paykel, E. S. & Klerman, G. L. (1970) Clinical depression among Negroes. American Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 329—35.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.