In a six-week prospective study, we administered Chinese version of TEMPS-A (Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, San Diego-Autoquestionnair) to 93 patients with bipolar I depression, 135 patients with bipolar II depression, and 101 healthy controls. Cognitive function was assessed with a battery of neuropsychological tasks, including attention, processing speed, set shifting, planning, verbal working memory, verbal fluency, and visual spatial memory. Mixed-effects statistical models were used to assess the effects of affective temperaments on cognitive function.
Bipolar patients with hyperthymic temperament showed greater cognitive deficits in set shifting (p=0.05) and verbal working memory (p=0.026) than did bipolar patients with non-predominant temperaments (predominant temperament was defined as one standard deviation above the mean). The differences in estimated marginal means were 鈭?.624 (95% CI, 鈭?.25 to 0) and 鈭?.429 (95% CI, 鈭?.81 to 鈭?.05), respectively. Significant temperament X bipolar subtype interaction effects were observed for set shifting (Wald X2=18.161, p<0.001), planning (Wald X2=7.906, p=0.048), and visual spatial memory (Wald X2=16.418, p=0.001).
The anxious temperament was not evaluated.
Our data suggest that hyperthymic temperament may be associated with cognitive deficits in some specific domains in bipolar disorder; and that the effect of temperaments may be different across subtypes of bipolar disorder.