Distribution and gender effects of the subscales of a German version of the temperament autoquestionnaire briefTEMPS-M in a university student population

Background: This paper examines the distribution of the temperamental characteristics and gender effects of a new autoquestionnaire developed by Akiskal et al. (TEMPS-A) in its German briefTEMPS-M version. Methods: As described in a companion article [J. Affect. Disord. 85 (2005), 53, this issue], based on a study population of 1056 students of the Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, Germany, we constructed the briefTEMPS-M. In the present paper we report on the basic descriptive statistics of the five subscales of the briefTEMPS (depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable, and anxious), as well as gender differences. Results: Except for the hyperthymic, these subscales are capable of representing the full range of temperament in a sample of German students. Characteristics of the distribution (skewness, kurtosis) of the subscales are well in acceptable limits. We found higher depressive, cyclothymic, and anxious, as well as lower hyperthymic, temperament values in women as compared to men. Cut-off scores to determine extreme groups are provided. To render our results comparable to a similar study using the interview version of the TEMPS-I in an Italian student population [J. Affect. Disord. 47 (1998) 1; J. Affect. Disord. 51 (1998) 7], we computed the rates for dominant temperaments based on the z scores +2 S.D., and obtained the following: depressive, 4.7%; cyclothymic, 4.7%; hyperthymic, 2.1%; irritable, 4.0%; and anxious, 4.2%. Conclusions: The briefTEMPS-M is a potentially valuable scale to quickly assess temperament in research, clinical and normal samples.