Depressive mood and personality in terms of temperament and character among the normal population and depressive inpatients

Based on a recent report on the relatedness between depressed mood, as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and personality according to Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), we attempted to replicate those findings in a sample of normal subjects (n=850) and depressive inpatients (n=353) taking into account age, gender and various aspects of depressive symptoms by means of BDI factors. ‘Harm Avoidance’ and ‘Self-Directedness’ were found closely related with depressive mood in both samples. Furthermore, ‘Exploratory Excitability’ (NS 1) was consistently related with depressive mood. However, the occurred age and gender effects onto the relations of depressive mood and personality characteristics were very weak (trends for ‘Reward Dependence’ and ‘Persistence’ at P=0.10 exclusively in the normal sample). Most of the variance in depressive mood could be explained by changes in ‘Harm Avoidance’ and ‘Self-Directedness’ independent on effects of age and gender. Possibly, the latter factors are slightly influencing these relations for ‘Reward Dependence’ and ‘Persistence’.