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Cited by 218Personality Traits and PsychologyAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesPersonality Disorders and Psychopathology

Personality self-reports are concurrently reliable and valid during acute depressive episodes

Costa, Paul T., Bagby, R. Michael, Herbst, Jeffrey H., McCrae, Robert R.·2005·Journal of Affective Disorders
DOI 10.1016/j.jad.2005.06.010
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Abstract

Background It is alleged that depression distorts the assessment of general personality traits. To test that hypothesis, we examined scores on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) administered to acutely depressed patients at baseline and 14 to 26 weeks after treatment with antidepressant medication.Method Two hundred and fifty patients completed the NEO-PI-R at baseline, 109 patients after 14 to 26 weeks of antidepressant pharmacotherapy. 48 patients (49.5%) were identified as responders while 49 (50.5%) were identified as non-responders. The remaining 12 patients were excluded because they met HRSD response criteria but not the SCID-I MDD criteria at treatment completion.Results At baseline, NEO-PI-R scales showed high internal consistency and replicated the normative factor structure, suggesting that psychometric properties were preserved. Among non-responders, retest correlations were uniformly high (rs=.50 to .88) and mean levels showed little change, providing evidence for the consistency of personality self-reports during an acute depressive episode. NEO-PI-R scales showed construct validity in the concurrent prediction of a number of clinical criteria. Effective treatment had significant effects on the mean levels of neuroticism, which decreased, and extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness, which increased.Limitations The participants were from a clinical database and were not randomly assigned for the treatment.Conclusions The results suggest that the effect of acute depression is to amplify somewhat the personality profile of people prone to depression. Rather than regard these depression-caused changes in assessed personality trait levels as a distortion, we interpret them as accurate reflections of the current condition of the individual. Personality traits have biological bases, and when they are changed (by disease or therapeutic interventions) trait levels change.

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Authors
Costa, P. T., Bagby, R. M., Herbst, J. H., & McCrae, R. R.
Affiliations
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US)
Corresponding author
Costa, Paul T.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Affective Disorders
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2005-12
Volume
89
Issue
1-3
Pages
45-55
ISSN
0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jad.2005.06.010
OpenAlex
W2172124190
Semantic Scholar
d902b11a868be0eed5c645d421022c0ebc80c179
Cited by
218
References
60
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 10
FWCI
9.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
Keywords
personality traits, acute depression, depressive episodes, NEO-PI-R, antidepressant treatment, treatment response, neuroticism, Big Five personality traits, trait stability, construct validity, test-retest reliability
MeSH terms
Acute Disease, Antidepressive Agents, Major Depressive Disorder, Humans, Personality Inventory, Psychometrics, Reference Values, Reproducibility of Results, Treatment Outcome

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