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Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations of Temperament and Mental Disorders in Youth

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Abstract

Here we evaluate the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between temperament and mental disorders in adolescents. Temperament was assessed in a cohort of 1540 youths by the revised self-report Early Adolescence Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ-R) at baseline and confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the best empirical model. Mental disorders were assessed by parental interview using the Development and Well-Being Behavior Assessment at baseline and at 3-year follow-up. Participants were grouped into Typically Developing Comparisons, Phobias, Distress, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD). Logistic regression models tested the effects of temperament on incidence and remission of mental disorders. The bifactor model of EATQ-R presented the best fit. Distress, ADHD and DBD have lower levels of effortful control in baseline. Adjusted longitudinal analysis showed that effortful control predicted lower incidence of Phobias (OR 0.74; p = 0.018), distress (OR 0.74; p = 0.014) and DBD (OR 0.68; p = 0.037). Temperament factors did not predicted remission rates.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents, a science and technology institute funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq; National Council for Scientific and Technological Development; grant numbers 573974/2008-0 and 465550/2014-2) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP; Research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo; grant number 2008/57896-8 and 2014/50917-0).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Neuropsiquiatria, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), Avenida Roraima 1000, Building 26, Office 1446, Santa Maria, 97105-900, Brazil

    Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann

  2. Departamento de Psiquiatria, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Rua Borges Lagoa 570, São Paulo, 04038-000, Brazil

    Pedro Mario Pan, Jair de Jesus Mari & Rodrigo Affonseca Bressan

  3. Departamento de Psiquiatria e Medicina Legal, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Rua Ramiro Barcelos 2350, Porto Alegre, 90035-003, Brazil

    Gisele Gus Manfro, Luis Augusto Rohde & Giovanni Abrahão Salum

  4. Departamento de Psiquiatria, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Rua Dr. Ovídio Pires de Campos 785, São Paulo, 01060-970, Brazil

    Eurípedes Constantino Miguel

  5. National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Brazil

    Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann, Pedro Mario Pan, Gisele Gus Manfro, Jair de Jesus Mari, Eurípedes Constantino Miguel, Rodrigo Affonseca Bressan, Luis Augusto Rohde & Giovanni Abrahão Salum

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  1. Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann
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Correspondence to Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann.

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Conflict of interest

PMP received PhD scholarship from CNPq and receives post-doctoral grant from FAPESP. GGM and GAS received research grants from national funding agencies: FAPERGS, CAPES and CNPq. ECM and RAB received research grants from national funding agencies: CAPES, CNPq and FAPESP. RAB also received research grants from Janssen Cilag, Novartis, Roche in the last 5 years. RAB has participated in speaker bureaus for Ache, Janssen, Lundbeck and Novartis and has been a consultant for Janssen, Novartis and Roche. LAR was on speakers’ bureau and/or acted as consultant for Eli-Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, Medice, Novartis, receives authorship royalties from Oxford Press and ArtMed, and has received unrestricted educational and research support from Eli-Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, Shire and Novartis. MSH and JJM declare no potential conflicts of interest concerning this work.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was submitted and approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of São Paulo.

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Written informed consent was obtained from parents of all participants and verbal assent was obtained from the research subjects.

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Hoffmann, M.S., Pan, P.M., Manfro, G.G. et al. Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations of Temperament and Mental Disorders in Youth. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 50, 374–383 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-018-0846-0

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