title: Affective temperaments: familiality and clinical use in mood disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The affective temperament profiles among patients with mood disorders may be an important parameter in the clinical evaluation of these patients. It has been proposed that temperament traits have familiality and may represent vulnerability markers to identify the risk to developing specific clinical type of mood disorders. To test these theories, measures of temperament were examined in bipolar patients (BP), unipolar major depressive patients (UP), healthy relatives of these patients (HRP) and normal controls (NC).
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared affective temperament scores, using the brief Brazilian version of TEMPS-A--TEMPS-Rio de Janeiro, between 90 BP, 88 UP, 132 HRP and 136 NC. A MANCOVA model was constructed. Dependent variables were the six subscales of the TEMPS-RJ (depressive, cyclothymic, irritable, hyperthymic, anxious and worrying temperaments). The effects of age and gender were adjusted as covariates. Furthermore, we performed a comparison between a subgroup of 68 HRP, relatives of bipolar patients (HRBP), and the remainders 64 HRP, relatives of unipolar patients (HRUP) and controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The clinical group (BP, UP) showed higher temperament scores than NC, except for hyperthymic scores. BP showed higher cyclothymic (p<0.001), hyperthymic (p<0.001) and lower anxious (p<0.01) temperament scores than UP. HRP showed lower scores than clinical groups. HRBP scored higher cyclothymic subscale than HRUP and NC groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bipolar I and II subjects were placed in the same group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The cyclothymic and hyperthymic traits were associated with bipolarity in patients and cyclothymic temperament could be a characteristic trait of the healthy relatives of bipolar patients. Our data support that affective temperament might become a useful tool for clinical evaluation and research purposes in mood disorders.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Program, Federal University of Minas Gerais-UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. alex.aferreira@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Alexandre de
authors.initials: Ad
authors.lastname: Aguiar Ferreira
authors.forename: Alina Gomide
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
authors.forename: Fernando Silva
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Neves
authors.forename: Jerson
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laks
authors.forename: Humberto
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Correa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology*; D001938:Brazil; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory; D013694:Temperament