Eysenck’s Two Big Personality Factors and Their Relationship to Depression in Patients with Chronic Idiopathic Pain Disorder: A Clinimetric Validation Analysis
Aim. The clinimetric aspects of Eysenck’s two big personality factors (neuroticism and extraversion) were originally identified by principal component analysis but have been insufficiently analysed with item response theory models. Their relationship to states of melancholia and anxiety was subsequently analysed. Method. Patients with chronic idiopathic pain disorder were included in the study. The nonparametric item response model (Mokken) was compared to the coefficient alpha to validate the anxiety and depression subscales within the neuroticism scale and the extraversion and introversion subscales within the extraversion scale. When measuring states of depression and anxiety, the Melancholia Scale and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale were used. Results. We identified acceptable subscales of anxiety and depression in the Eysenck factor of neuroticism and extraversion versus introversion subscales within the Eysenck factor of extraversion. Focusing on the item of “Does your mood often go up and down?” we showed a statistically significant association with melancholia and anxiety for patients with a positive score on this item. Conclusion. Within the Eysenck factor of neuroticism it is important to differentiate between the anxiety and depression subscales. The clinimetric analysis of the Eysenck factor of extraversion identified valid subscales. 1. Introduction Clinical psychometrics is clinimetrics in psychiatry [1]. The term clinimetrics was introduced by Feinstein [2] to cover the clinical markers in clinical medicine which cannot be measured by a biophysicist, a geneticist, or a pharmacologist. From a clinical point of view such markers as neuroticism or depression have high validity. Using experienced psychiatrists [3] as an index of validity, Eysenck’s neuroticism proved to have a higher validity than many of the personality dimensions covered by Murray’s theory [4]. We also found that a subgroup of the items in the Hamilton Depression Scale was used by experienced psychiatrists when assessing depression severity; this led to the Melancholia Scale (MES) [1, 5]. The psychometric validation procedure which employs mathematical or statistical models to evaluate the measurement aspects of questionnaires such as the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) [6] or the Melancholia Scale (MES) [7] typically includes factor analysis, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, or item response theory models [1]. When identifying the two-factor structure of personality, namely, neuroticism and extraversion, Eysenck used principal component analysis [8]. At their release of
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