Artículo de revista
Affective temperaments in clinical practice: A validation study in mood disorders
Fecha
2012Registro en:
Journal of Affective Disorders 136 (2012) 577–580
doi:10.1016/j.jad.2011.10.028
Autor
Vöhringer Cárdenas, Paul Alfred
Whitham, E. A.
Thommi, S. B.
Holtzman, N. S.
Khrad, H.
Ghaemi, S. N.
Institución
Resumen
Background: We sought to examine correlations between clinical validators and temperaments
in clinical practice.
Methods:We provided the self-report TEMPS-A (50 itemlong) to 123 consecutive patients seen in
theMood Disorders Programof Tufts Medical Center. Temperamentwas assessed as cyclothymia,
dysthymia, irritable or hyperthymia. Cut-offs were tested using (50%) and (75%) thresholds of
affirmative responses, as well as highest percent for dominant temperament. We reported no
dominant temperament at 75% cut-off . Multivariate regression modeling was conducted to
assess confounding bias.
Results: Using clinical and demographic validators, cyclothymia was the most strongly validated
temperament, followed by dysthymia and hyperthymia. Irritable temperament did not appear to
be valid in this sample. A 75% item endorsement cut-off appeared to identify clinically important
temperaments in slightly less than half of this sample. Those without any temperament at 75%
cut-off had better prognostic features. 50% cut-off was highly nonspecific, and poorly correlated
with diagnostic validators.
Conclusions: Affective temperaments correlate with clinical validators,most robustly for cyclothymia.
75% cut-off on the TEMPS may provide a useful categorical definition of abnormal affective
temperaments in mood disorders. With that definition, slightly less than one-half of patients
with mood disorders have affective temperaments. Those without abnormal affective temperaments
have better prognostic features.