Polish validation of the TEMPS-A: the profile of affective temperaments in a college student population.
OBJECTIVE
The TEMPS-A scale is a self-evaluation measure to assess five affective temperaments: depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable and anxious. The scale has already been validated in over 10 languages. In this paper, the first report on the validation of the Polish version of TEMPS-A is presented.


METHODS
The TEMPS-A questionnaire version that includes 110 questions has been adapted following the translation-back translation methodology from English to Polish, checked by the originators of the five scales (H.S.A., K.K.A.). In the next step, the Polish version of TEMPS-A was administered to 521 Polish undergraduate students. Internal consistency of temperamental scales was measured with Cronbach-alpha coefficients. Correlation among the temperaments was examined using Pearson's bivariate correlation. Differences between sexes were tested with ANOVA.


RESULTS
The Cronbach-alpha and the Kuder-Richardson 20 reliability coefficients for the depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable and anxious temperaments were between 0.69 and 0.83. The percentage of subjects whose Z-scores were above 2 SD, was the highest among depressive (4%) and anxious (3.5%) temperaments, followed by the cyclothymic (2.9%), hyperthymic (1%), and irritable (0.6%). The strongest positive correlations between the temperamental scales were found between depressive and anxious, as well as between cyclothymic and irritable ones (correlation coefficients 0.63 and 0.57, respectively). Male subjects attained significantly higher scores for hyperthymic temperament, compared to females, while females scored significantly higher than males on cyclothymic and anxious temperaments.


CONCLUSIONS
Our healthy young subjects are not representative of the Polish population. As external validation has been achieved in other language versions, it was not repeated in the present Polish version.


CONCLUSIONS
The Polish version of TEMPS-A has a good internal consistency. The findings generally cohere with those from previously validated versions in other languages.
Borkowska
Alina
A
Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Nicolaus Copernicus University Torun, Collegium Medicum Bydgoszcz, Poland. alab@cm.umk.pl
Rybakowski
Janusz K
JK
Drozdz
Wiktor
W
Bielinski
Maciej
M
Kosmowska
Magdalena
M
Rajewska-Rager
Aleksandra
A
Bucinski
Adam
A
Akiskal
Kareen K
KK
Akiskal
Hagop S
HS
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013694:Temperament; D014175:Translating; D055815:Young Adult