Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T07:25:15.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Personality Traits During Depression and After Clinical Recovery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Eric D. Peselow ,
Michael P. Sanfilipo ,
Ronald R. Fieve  and
Gary Gulbenkian
Eric D. Peselow*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Michael P. Sanfilipo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, New York Veterans Administration Medical Center, 423 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010
Ronald R. Fieve
Affiliation:
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 722 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032
Gary Gulbenkian
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
*
∗1322 East 84th Street, New York, NY 11236
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigated whether and how acute depressive symptoms affect the self-report of maladaptive personality traits. Sixty-eight acutely depressed patients underwent the Structured Interview for DSM–III Personality Disorder (SIDP) before and after pharmacological treatment, allowing us to determine whether self-reported maladaptive personality traits are different during depression and after successful clinical recovery. After the initial SIDP administration (during an episode of major depression), patients received desipramine treatment (dose range 150–300 mg/day) over a course of 4–5 weeks before readministration of the SIDP. For those who recovered from their depression (n = 39), cluster III trait scores were significantly lower than those assessed at baseline, and there was a lower frequency of cluster III categorical diagnoses for a personality disorder after treatment than before treatment. Recovered patients also had significantly lower cluster I personality trait scores after treatment as compared with baseline ratings. For those who did not recover from their depression after treatment (n = 29), cluster I trait scores were in fact higher than those measured at baseline, but there were no differences in categorical diagnoses before and after treatment. Cluster II personality traits and categorical diagnoses were not different between those who did and did not recover from their depression. Thus, depression may have a significant effect on the assessment of cluster I and cluster III personality traits. It is possible that cluster I and III ‘personality traits’ may be interwoven with depressive features and therefore subject to state influences, whereas cluster II personality traits may entail enduring, long-term characteristic modes of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Type
Peer Review
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 164 , Issue 3 , March 1994 , pp. 349 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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

Akiskai, H. S., Hirschfeld, R. M. & Yerevanian, B. I. (1983) The relationship of personality to affective disorders: a critical review. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 801–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM–III). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn, revised) (DSM–III–R). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Bech, P., Shapiro, R. W., Sihm, F., et al (1980) Personality in unipolar and bipolar manic-melancholic patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 62, 303–308.Google Scholar
Bell, R. C. & Jackson, H. J. (1992) The structure of personality disorder in DSM–III. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 85, 279–287.Google Scholar
Coppen, A. & Metcalfe, M. (1965) Effect of a depressive illness on MPI scores. British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 236–239.Google Scholar
Farmer, R. & Nelson-Gray, R. O. (1990) Personality disorders and depression: hypothetical relations, empirical findings and methodological considerations. Clinical Psychology Review, 10, 453–476.Google Scholar
Garside, R. F., Kay, D. W. K., Roy, J. R., et al (1970) MPI scores and symptoms of depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 429–432.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gartner, A. F., Marcus, R. N., Halmi, K., et al (1989) DSM–III–R personality disorders in patients with eating disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 1585–1591.Google Scholar
Guy, W. (1976) ECDEU Assessment Manual for Psychopharmacology (revised) DHEW Pub. no. (ADM) 76–338. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1967) Development of a rating scale for primary depressive illness. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 6, 278–296.Google Scholar
Hirschfeld, R. M. A. (1986) Personality disorders: foreword. In Psychiatry Update - American Psychiatric Association Annual Review (Vol. 5) (eds Frances, A. J. & Hales, R. J.), pp. 233–239. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.Google Scholar
Hirschfeld, R. M. A., Klerman, G. L., Clayton, P. J., et al (1983) Assessing personality: the effect of the depressive state on trait measurement. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 695–699.Google Scholar
Hirschfeld, R. M. A., Klerman, G. L., Lavori, P., et al (1989) Premorbid personality assessments of first onset of major depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 345–350.Google Scholar
Joffe, R. T. & Regan, J. J. (1989) Personality and response to tricyclic antidepressants in depressed patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 745–749.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. & DiScipio, W. J. (1968) Eysenck personality inventory scores of patients with depressive illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 767–770.Google Scholar
Liebowitz, M. R., Stallone, F., Dunner, D. L., et al (1979) Personality features of patients with primary affective disorders. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 60, 214–244.Google Scholar
Lindquist, E. F. (1953) Design and Analysis of Experiments in Psychology and Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Loranger, A. W., Lenzewenger, M. F., Gartner, A. F., et al (1991) Trait state artifacts and the diagnosis of personality disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 48, 720–728.Google Scholar
Martin, M., Ward, J. C. & Clark, D. M. (1983) Neuroticism and the recall of positive and negative personality information. Behavior Research Therapy, 5, 495–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mavissakalian, M. & Hamann, M. S. (1987) DSM–III personality disorders in agoraphobia. II. Changes with treatment. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 28, 356–361.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Boyle, M. & Self, D. (1990) A comparison of two interviews of DSM–III–R personality disorders. Psychiatry Research, 32, 85–92.Google Scholar
Perris, C. (1971) Personality patterns in patients with affective disorders. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 221 (Suppl.), 43–52.Google Scholar
Peselow, E. D., Fieve, R. R. & DiFiglia, C. (1992) Personality traits and response to desipramine. Journal of Affective Disorders, 24, 209–216.Google Scholar
Pfohl, B., Coryell, W., Zimmerman, M., et al (1984) The implications of DSM–III personality disorders for patients with major depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 7, 309–318.Google Scholar
Reich, J. (1987) Instruments measuring DSM–III and DSM–III–R personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 1, 220–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reich, J. Noyes, R., Hirschfeld, R., et al (1987) State and personality in depressed and panic patients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 181–187.Google Scholar
Stangl, D., Pfohl, B., Zimmerman, M., et al (1985) A structured interview for DSM–III personality disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 591–596.Google Scholar
Tyrer, P., Alexander, J., Ciccheti, D., et al (1979) Reliability of a schedule for rating personality disorders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 168–174.Google Scholar
Vaglum, P., Friis, S., Vaglum, S., et al (1989) Comparison between personality disorders in DSM–III and DSM–III–R: reliability, diagnostic overlap, and predictive validity. Psychopathology, 22, 309–314.Google Scholar
Vaglum, P., Pfohl, B., Stangl, D., et al (1986) Assessment of DSM–III personality disorders: the importance of interviewing an informant. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 47, 261–263.Google Scholar
Vaglum, P., Pfohl, B., Coryell, W., et al (1991) Major depression and personality disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 22, 199–210.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.