What do personality tests say about mood disorders? A systematic review

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Clinical Neuroscience

Background:

• Personality traits are linked to mood disorder development and maintenance.
• Varied assessment tools and theories hinder consistent findings on personality-mood disorder correlations.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify prevalent personality assessment methods for Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).
• Explore the theoretical frameworks underpinning these assessments.
• Synthesize findings on personality profiles associated with BD and MDD.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review adhering to PRISMA guidelines.
• Searched PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, and gray literature up to August 2024.
• Included 65 studies (21,963 patients) from 2,792 initial records.

Main Results:

• The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was most frequent (n=16), followed by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) (n=6 each).
• Cloninger's Psychobiological Theory (n=24) and the Five Factor Model (n=23) were the dominant theoretical bases.
• Patients with BD and MDD commonly exhibited high harm avoidance, high neuroticism, and low conscientiousness.

Conclusions:

• Personality assessment plays a vital role in identifying profiles associated with mood disorders.
• High harm avoidance, neuroticism, and low conscientiousness are characteristic personality traits in BD and MDD.
• Addressing methodological limitations and self-report biases is essential for enhancing assessment reliability.