Validation study of the Spanish brief version of TEMPS-A.

Introduction: Identifying affective temperaments could be useful both for understanding the normal behavioral variations in the general population and to establish if there is a clinical predisposition to certain disorders. Five affective temperaments have been proposed: depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable and anxious. Original instrument for measuring them (TEMPS-A) is a 110-item scale but many short versions in different languages have been validated. The aim of this study was to obtain a short self-administered Spanish version of TEMPS-A with good psychometric properties.

Materials and methods: A sample of 550 students who answered the argentinean version of TEMPS-A was included, after psychometric analysis a comparison between inpatients with major depression and their matched controls by sex and age who answered the brief version was performed to get an external validation.

Results: The sample was composed by 298 (54.2%) women. The mean age was 23.3 year (SD=6.2). A forced five factor analysis was performed. The 7 items with the highest factorial load (more than 0.350) for each subscale were included in the brief version. The Cronbach alpha's ranged from 0.690 to .800. The most prevalent temperament was hyperthymic followed by cyclothymic for students sample. Similarities between students and controls sample were observed, but not with patients with major depression.

Conclusions: This brief Spanish version of TEMPS-A (35 items) has good psychometric properties and can be used in general and clinical population.