Abstract
BackgroundPersonality is considered as an important aspect in persons with psychotic disorders. Several studies have investigated personality in schizophrenia. However, no study has investigated stability of personality traits exceeding three years in patients with schizophrenia. This study aims to investigate the stability of personality traits over a five-year period among patients with schizophrenia and non-psychotic individuals and to evaluate case-control differences.MethodsPatients with psychotic disorders (n = 36) and non-psychotic individuals (n = 76) completed Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP) at two occasions five years apart. SSP scores were analysed for effect of time and case-control differences by multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and within-subjects correlation.ResultsMANCOVA within-subjects analysis did not show any effect of time. Thus, SSP mean scale scores did not significantly vary during the five-year interval. Within subject correlations (Spearman) ranged 0.30–0.68 and 0.54–0.75 for the different SSP scales in patients and controls, respectively. Patients scored higher than controls in SSP scales Somatic Trait Anxiety, Psychic Trait Anxiety, Stress Susceptibility, Lack of Assertiveness, Detachment, Embitterment, and Mistrust.ConclusionThe stability of the SSP personality trait was reasonably high among patients with psychotic disorder, although lower than among non-psychotic individuals, which is in accordance with previous research.
Highlights
Personality is considered as an important aspect in persons with psychotic disorders
We aimed to investigate firstly, whether personality traits were stable over a five-year period in a sample of patients with psychosis; and secondly whether patients with psychosis differed from non-psychotic individuals
Patients had a lower level of functioning, lower verbal intelligent quotient (IQ) and tended to be less educated (Table 1)
Summary
Personality is considered as an important aspect in persons with psychotic disorders. Several studies have investigated personality in schizophrenia. No study has investigated stability of personality traits exceeding three years in patients with schizophrenia. This study aims to investigate the stability of personality traits over a five-year period among patients with schizophrenia and non-psychotic individuals and to evaluate case-control differences. Kentros et al (1997), investigated 21 patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders (mean age 34 years) over a sixmonth period using test-retest correlations [13]. They found strong correlations for Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness and Conscientiousness whereas for Agreeableness the strength of the correlation was moderate. The authors concluded that FFM personality traits remain stable over time, despite fluctuations in psychotic positive symptoms
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