A study of personality profile and well-being of the patients with depression

Clinical depression is an emotional, physical and cognitive state that is intense and long lasting and has more negative effects on a person's day to day life. Approximately one in five people will experience an episode of clinical depression in their lifetime. Some personality types like high anxiety levels are sensitive to criticism have a higher risk of developing depression. Psychological well-being is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. The present investigation is an attempt to study the effects of levels of depression on a person ’s personality and well-being. Agroup of clinically diagnosed 100 patients of depression (50 males and 50 females) and an equal number of normal subjects, belonging to Ahmedabad city, aged 20 to 35 years were studied. The Beck's Depression Inventory (1996), Maudsley Personality Inventory (1975) and PGI Well-Being Scale (1989) were administered on the subjects. ANOVA was applied for data analysis. The results exhibited that the patients were significantly more introvert and neurotic compared to normal subjects suggesting that the normal subjects tended to be more extrovert and emotionally stable. The female subjects suffering from depression tended to be more introvert and neurotic compared to their male counterparts, who had rather extrovert and emotionally stable personality. The interaction effect of level of depression and gender was found to be significant on type of personality. The patients of depression had a significant effect on their poor well-being. However, the male patients were found to be maintaining their well-being significantly better than the female patients. Further research is warranted to establish the present findings more stringently.