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Typus melancholicus and the Temperament and Character Inventory personality dimensions in patients with major depression
Author(s) -
Kimura Satoshi,
Sato Tetsuya,
Takahashi Toshihiko,
Narita Tomohiro,
Hirano Shigeki,
Goto Miho
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1819.2000.00656.x
Subject(s) - harm avoidance , temperament and character inventory , cooperativeness , psychology , personality , personality assessment inventory , clinical psychology , temperament , reward dependence , developmental psychology , social psychology
Although many clinical studies have been conducted to determine the etiological role and clinical implications of typus melancholicus for unipolar depression, maladaptive personality features in depressive patients have not been well described. This study explores typus melancholicus, as measured by the rigidity subscale of the Munich Personality Test, and maladaptive personality features, as measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), in 131 remitted patients with DSM‐IV major depression and 154 normal controls. The patients reported significantly higher scores on rigidity and harm avoidance and significantly lower scores on self‐directedness and cooperativeness. Only 23.6% of the variance of the rigidity scale was explained by the variance of the seven TCI scales, in which only persistence was significantly correlated positively to rigidity. Cluster analysis identified four subgroups, two of which were characterized by a high rigidity score. One of these two subgroups showed no maladaptive personality features, as measured by the TCI, while the other showed high harm avoidance and low self‐directedness. These results indicate that the personality of depressive patients is characterized not only by typus melancholicus but also by maladaptive personality features, that typus melancholicus is not well represented by any TCI scale, and that typus melancholicus and maladaptive personality features can coexist in some depressive patients.