The development of a short version of TEMPS-A in Hungarian non-clinical samples.

BACKGROUND: The Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) is a widely used measure of affective temperaments. Affective temperaments refer to people's prevailing moods and are important precursors of affective disorders. With the two studies presented in this paper, we aimed to develop a short version of the Hungarian TEMPS-A. METHODS: A total number of 1857 university students participated in two studies. The original 110-item version and the newly developed short version of TEMPS-A, the anger, depression, and anxiety scales of the PROMIS Emotional Distress item bank, the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the Well-Being Index were administered to participants. RESULTS: Out of the original 110 items, 40 items of TEMPS-A loaded on five factors that represented the five affective temperaments. Factors of the short version showed moderate to strong correlations with their original counterparts. All factors had good to excellent internal reliability. Factors of the newly developed short version of TEMPSA showed meaningful correlations with measures of emotional distress, mania, and indices of psychological well-being. CONCLUSIONS: The short version of the Hungarian TEMPS-A is a promising instrument both in clinical fields and for academic research. The newly developed short version proved to be a valid and reliable measure of affective temperaments.

[Psychotherapy and efficacy]. / Pszichoterápia és hatékonyság.

Evaluation of the efficacy in psychotherapy dates back to the beginnings of psychotherapy itself. However, it is not an easy task to undertake efficacy evaluation because it is expensive and several methodological difficulties may be also present. The authors discuss some questions related efficacy evaluation in psychotherapy, including criteria for selecting the cases and the actual target of evaluation. In addition, the authors analyze the narrative psychological content analysis method which includes the analysis of psychological features and their changes of texts written by the patient about him- or herself. They conclude that this method can open novel perspectives in psychotherapy.

[Teachers' knowledge about suicide and its connection to burn-out and avoidant coping]. / Tanárok öngyilkossággal kapcsolatos ismeretei, különös tekintettel a kiégésre és az elkerülo megküzdésre.

INTRODUCTION: Priority of suicide prevention is so-called "gatekeepers" ("helper professionals'") training on suicidology. Teachers' knowledge concerning suicide was examined mainly in search for the answer to the question whether poor knowledge of suicidology is just a result of lack of information. Assuming that the extent of suicidology knowledge is a complex issue, ignorance might be related to burnout and avoidant coping. METHODS: Teachers participating in compulsory postgradual training were tested (N = 102). Hungarian version of the short form of Hubbard McIntosh's suicide questionnaire, Maslach's burnout questionnaire for teachers and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS-48) were used. RESULTS: Our results show that teachers' knowledge concerning suicide is somewhat worse than that of helpers, but better than the that of the average population. Avoidant coping style was more typical of teachers having poorer knowledge about suicide; and education professionals with less task oriented coping style reported greater knowledge of this subject. Authors therefore suggest a link between avoidant coping and the extent of knowledge concerning suicide. Relationship of avoidant coping with burnout was not confirmed, but a mediational model could be set up regarding male participants. CONCLUSION: Suicide prevention trainings are definitely of high importance and utility among teachers. Based on our results it seems equally important to help them overcome the cultural taboos related to the topic, to provide them with psychological support and to enable them to discuss their own suicide-related experiences and personal involvement in professional-led groups.

Dimensions of adult attachment are significantly associated with specific affective temperament constellations in a Hungarian university sample.

BACKGROUND: Related to emotion regulation and mental health, adult attachment and affective temperaments are relevant research topics of contemporary psychiatry and clinical psychology. However, to date, only one study investigated the relationship between these two constructs. Thus, we aimed to further reveal adult attachment's association with affective temperaments. METHODS: Affective temperament and adult attachment dimensions of 1469 Hungarian university students were assessed with self-report measures (Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa and San Diego autoquestionnaire and Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, respectively). Age and measured variables were compared between genders with ANOVAs. Associations between attachment dimensions and affective temperaments were examined with Pearson's correlations and partial correlations; the moderation effect of age and gender on these relationships was tested with PROCESS macro. Using Fisher r-to-z transformation, we also compared our results with the findings of the previous study. Cohen's ds were used to report effect size and Cronbach's alphas were computed as indices of internal reliability. RESULTS: Significant correlations were found between attachment dimensions and affective temperaments. Correlations were especially robust between attachment anxiety and depressive, cyclothymic and anxious temperaments. Contrasted with the results of the previous study, hyperthymic temperament was negatively related to attachment avoidance and anxious temperament was significantly more strongly correlated with attachment anxiety in our study. LIMITATIONS: We used a previous version of the adult attachment measure. Our sample differed from the target sample in several ways. Participants were not screened for mental disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight that adult attachment dimensions are significantly associated with affective temperaments.