The relationship between temperament and character in conversion disorder and comorbid depression

The aim of this study was to compare conversion disorder patients with healthy controls in terms of temperament and character, and to determine the effect of these characteristics on comorbid depression, based on the idea that conversion disorder patients may have distinctive temperament and character qualities.

The study involved 58 patients diagnosed with conversion disorder, based on the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, under observation at the Bakırköy Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders Outpatient Center, Istanbul. The patients were interviewed with a Structured Clinical Interview (SCID-I) and 57 healthy volunteers, matched for age, sex and education level, were interviewed with a Structured Clinical Interview for people without a psychiatric disorder (SCID-I/NP). All the participants completed a sociodemographic form, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and the Temperament and Character Inventory.

The conversion disorder patients displayed more harm avoidance (P<.001), more impulsivity (P<.01) and more sentimentality (P<.01) than the healthy controls, but were less persistent (P<.05). In terms of character qualities, conversion disorder patients had high self-transcendence (P<.05), but were inadequate in terms of self-directedness (P<.001) and took on less responsibility (P<.05) than the healthy controls.

Conversion disorder patients are significantly different from healthy controls on temperament and character measures of harm avoidance, persistence, self-transcendence and self-directedness.