Correlation between depression-related personality dimensions and personality traits and its effects on depression / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the correlation between the higher-order personality dimension(neuroticism) and the lower-order personality traits (alexithymia,dependence,self-criticism,perfectionism) in the sample of university students,and explore the effect of the higher-order personality dimension and lower-order personality traits to depression in the same sample.Methods A convenient sample of 563 university students from the two Universities College in Hunan province.These students were assessed with Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D),Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ),The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scales (TAS-20),Frost multidimensional perfectionism scale (FMPS) and neuroticism subscale in EPQ.Results (1) There were significant relationships between the total score of CES-D,each depressive symptoms and 10 personality factors,such as neuroticism,doubts about action and so on (The coefficients ranged from 0.105 to 0.569,P ＜0.05 or P＜0.01).(2)Factor analysis and multiple linear regression on the neurotic showed that doubts about action,concerned over mistakes,difficulties identifying feelings (DIF),difficulties describing feelings (DDF),dependency,self-criticism and neuroticism belonged to the factor 1 (the factor load coefficients ranged from 0.574 to 0.775).(3) Neuroticism can explained 32.3 ％ variance of depression (R 2adj =0.323),after 6 personality factors entered the regression equation,such as difficulties describing feelings (DDF),parental criticism and so on,the explained variance of depression increased to 43.2％ (R2adj =0.432).Conclusion There are overlapping and interaction between personality traits which include self-criticism,dependency,difficulties describing feelings(DDF),difficulties identifying feelings (DIF),concerned over the mistakes and neuroticism personality dimensions.The depressed affect are effectively predicted by neuroticism which is a effectively predict factor of depression,personality traits included self-criticism,dependency,alexithymia and malajustment perfectionism have a gain function of depression base on the Neuroticism.