RELATIONSHIP OF PERSONALITY TRAITS WITH ANXIETY, DEPRESSIVE AND PTSD SYMPTOMATOLOGY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE. Experience with an Arab college student sample

Abstract

Background: The objective was to highlight the profile of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire traits of a sample of Arab college students, and assess the relationship of trait scores with gender, age and symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD and grade point average (GPA) score. Similar reports from the Arab world were restricted to neuroticism/extraversion and rarely involved traumatic experience and psychosocial performance.

Methods: Participants (N = 624) were Kuwaiti national college students who completed, in class, the EPQ- 90, Hopkins Symptoms Checklist, and the PTSD Checklist.

Results: Men had higher psychoticism (p < 0.004) and extra- version (p <0.03) scores, while women had higher neuroticism (p < 0.001) and lie scale scores (p < 0.001). Students with the lowest GPA had the highest scores for psychoticism (p< 0.01). Psychoticism and neuroticism were significantly correlated with each other, but negatively with extraversion and lie scale. The correlations of psychopathology were strongest with neu- roticism and psychoticism; and negative with extraversion and the lie scale. In regression analyses, the dominant predictor of psychopathology was neuroticism. With neuroticism as covari- ate, the sex difference in depression scores was no longer sig- nificant.

Conclusions: Our findings support the usefulness of neuroticism as reflecting characteristic level of distress; and a combination of high neuroticism and low extraversion as vul- nerability marker for psychopathology. Psychoticism needs further study as a marker of psychosocial underachievement.