Personality in patients with affective disorders and their relatives

Background: In studies of both patients and high-risk subjects, particular patterns of personality have been found to be associated with affective dis orders. Neuroticism and features of the melancholic type of personality see m to be risk factors for depression while premorbid features of the manic t ype of personality predominate in patients with more manic than depressive episodes. While neuroticism prevails in the majority of mental disorders, t he 'affective' personality variants appear to be more specifically associat ed with affective disorders. Methods: Personality features were investigate d in 122 recovered patients with affective disorders, 58 first-degree relat ives (high-risk subjects (HR)) and in the respective control groups (n = 48 ; n = 29). Patients were subdivided into: unipolar depression (melancholic subtype); bipolar II; bipolar I with more depressive episodes and bipolar I with more manic episodes. Personality measures were based on the Biographi cal Personality Interview (BPI) and the Munich Personality Test (MPT). Resu lts: The melancholic personality type (BPI) decreased from the unipolar dep ressives to the mainly manic group, while features of the manic type increa sed. MPT scores failed to discriminate between subgroups of patients. HR we re significantly more introverted and had a stronger orientation towards so cial norms than controls according to the MPT, and showed a tendency toward s the melancholic type according to the BPI. Limitations: The sizes of some groups or subgroups are relatively small. Therefore, they have to be enlar ged in the continuation of the study so as to increase the power of the sta tistical tests and thus to ascertain the robustness of the results. Conclus ion: Features of the typus melancholicus seem to be a risk factor for depre ssion. The identification of highly predictive risk factors provides an opp ortunity for the development of prevention programms. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.