Self-report ratings and informants' ratings of personalities of depressed outpatients.

OBJECTIVE

This study sought to determine whether personality traits of depressed patients could be assessed similarly by informants and self-reports of the patients themselves.

METHOD

Forty-six depressed outpatients completed the self-report (first-person) version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and nominated informants who knew them well to complete the third-person version of that instrument.

RESULTS

Agreement between the self-ratings and informants' ratings on the five factors of the inventory--neuroticism, extraversion, openness-to-experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness--was high. The only significant difference between the self-ratings and informants' ratings was on the extraversion scale, where the patients rated themselves as significantly more introverted than did the informants.

CONCLUSIONS

Informants' ratings of personality are similar to self-report ratings of depressed patients. Depressed mood may not influence the self-report of personality traits.