Am J Psychiatry 1991; 148:1505-1511
Copyright © 1991 by American Psychiatric Association
Mood variability: a study of four groups
RW Cowdry, DL Gardner, KM O'Leary, E Leibenluft and DR Rubinow
Clinical and Research Services Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md.
OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to determine whether self-rated patterns
of mood regulation differed among patients with major depression, patients
with borderline personality disorder, patients with premenstrual syndrome
(PMS), and normal subjects. METHOD: Fourteen days of morning and evening
mood self-ratings on a visual analog scale were analyzed for 65 female
subjects (10 with major depression, 16 with borderline personality
disorder, 15 with PMS, and 24 without psychiatric diagnoses). For each
individual, the mean and standard deviation of morning and evening ratings,
the mean absolute change in mood from one day to the next, and the change
from morning to evening were determined. RESULTS: The four groups differed
significantly on every measure of mood and mood variability except diurnal
variation. As expected, the group with major depression had the lowest
global ratings and a low degree of variability. The group with borderline
personality disorder was less depressed than the group with major
depression and showed a high degree of mood variability. Autocorrelation
analysis suggested that mood ratings in borderline personality disorder
vary randomly from one day to the next. The mood variability over the 14
days of the patients with PMS was significantly greater than that of normal
subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The visual analog scale can capture patterns of mood
and mood variability thought to be typical of these diagnostic groups. Mood
disorders differ not only in the degree of abnormal mood but also in the
pattern of mood variability, suggesting that mechanisms regulating mood
stability may differ from those regulating overall mood state.
