title: A study of the relationship between impulsiveness and obsessiveness in the general population. Inconsistency of the idea of the spectrum.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The obsessivity and the impulsivity as personality traits have been object of few studies on the general population. The authors outline as objective to study if such features are co-existing constructs, as advocate some authors or the opposite extremes of a continuum as assert other.
  
  
  METHODS
  They are studied the answers to a questionnaire on obsessive traits of the personality (MIRAP) and other referred to the impulsivity as trait, also, (ECIRYC) of a random sample of 418 subject extracted of the general population. They are applied multivariate statistic analysis technical (Factorial Analysis, Correspondence Analysis, and linear Regression Analysis) to establish the type of relationship that have the two studied personality traits.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The total scores of the MIRAP and the ECIRYC are correlated of a manner statistically significant (r = .39; p< .01). The Correspondence Analysis of those total scores distributed in deciles and two linear Regression Analysis show, also, a direct relationship between both traits that it is statistically significant. The obsessivity and the impulsivity do not correlate with the principal factor of the opposite trait. All the factors of both traits are grouped mutually in a factor in a positive way, except the impulsive factor “haste” that makes it negatively with the obsessive factor “order”.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that the obsessivity and the impulsivity, as personality traits, they are constructs convergent and not opposite poles of a continuum. But, simultaneously, one of the five factors of each trait (“haste” and “order”), yes are behaved as opposite extremes of a continuum, within conceptual framework, wider, of the traits to those which belong.
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry Department, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, U. de Alcalá, Madrid. jramosb.hrc@salud.madrid.org
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ramos Brieva
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cordero Villafáfila
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Suárez Martín
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zamora Romero
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009770:Obsessive Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires