La matinalité-vespéralité correspond à la préférence pour des plages horaires matinales ou vespérales affichée par certains individus pour planifier leurs activités. L’utilité de la mesure de ce construit par des autoquestionnaires a été démontrée chez l’adulte. Nous avons traduit en français l’échelle de matinalité-vespéralité pour enfants et analysé ses propriétés psychométriques dans 3 échantillons indépendants d’adolescents totalisant 392 sujets. Une ANCOVA montre que le score à la MESC est indépendant de l’âge et du sexe, mais que l’effet groupe est fortement significatif, évoquant une tendance vespérale chez les adolescents hospitalisés. Comme attendu, nous retrouvons une corrélation négative avec les heures de lever, de coucher, d’optimum physique et d’optimum intellectuel, et une indépendance vis-à-vis de la durée de sommeil nécessaire. À chaque fois, la consistance interne des 10 items est satisfaisante (a = 0,76 en moyenne) et la même structure à 2 facteurs est retrouvée (matinalité et planification). Malgré un faible effectif (n = 20), la stabilité test-retest est correcte à 8 mois. Nous retrouvons une faible corrélation négative de – 0,20 avec des mesures de dépression (MADRS et CES-D) comparables aux valeurs données dans la littérature chez l’adulte. Enfin, le score total de l’échelle est influencé par le mois de naissance. Une régression non linéaire ajustée pour l’âge et le sexe montre que les sujets vespéraux sont plutôt nés en mars-avril et que les sujets matinaux sont plutôt nés en septembre-octobre. Cet effet est significatif dans un échantillon recruté dans un collège mais pas dans l’échantillon recruté dans le service de Pédiatrie. Néanmoins, ce résultat est suffisamment proche de celui obtenu dans de vastes échantillons d’adultes pour qu’on puisse en accepter la validité. Le mois de naissance est une variable qui reflète la durée de la photopériode pendant la grossesse ou la période périnatale. Il est possible que la matinalité-vespéralité résulte de l’interaction entre ce facteur environnemental et un facteur génétique. À la lumière de ce résultat et d’autres publiés ailleurs, nous postulons d’un point de vue développemental que le mois de naissance pourrait avoir un effet comparable sur les traits de personnalité apparentés à l’impulsivité.

The Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) is a psychometrically sound instrument available in several languages, including French, aimed at arranging individuals along a continuum from high "eveningness" to high "morningness." On the other hand, impulsivity is involved in many personality disorders and is thought to be orthogonal to venturesomeness, which can be seen as a component of the broader construct of sensation seeking. We hypothesized that evening-type subjects would be more impulsive than morning-types. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to students, and only complete forms were analyzed (194 males and 358 females). A four-way analysis of covariance showed significant effects of age, gender and impulsivity, but not venturesomeness, on morningness in the sense of a higher degree of eveningness in more impulsive subjects. In addition, the correlation coefficients in both genders were similar to those reported in smaller samples. Our findings deserve further interest because, regardless of gender, they suggest a possible physiopathological approach to impulsivity that may be accessible by circadian interventions such as midday bright light exposure or pharmacological treatments.

There is strong evidence that individuals can be arranged on a continuum from Eveningness to Morningness reflecting their preferred time range for different activities. This preference, which mostly reflects the phase of the circadian pacemaker, is determined in part by mutations on the CLOCK gene, and by environmental factors such as the month of birth. It has been suggested that eveningness might be a susceptibility factor for depressive disorders. Two self-rated questionnaires are available (the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire, MEQ, and the Composite Scale for Morningness) and have been adapted for use with youngsters: the Junior-MEQ and the Morningness-Eveningness Scale for Children (MESC), respectively. Most studies concern adult samples, but it is accepted that puberty is associated with a phase delay in the circadian pacemaker die a shift towards eveningness) occuring around age 12 in both genders. In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of the French version of the MESC in 3 independent samples of adolescents (total n = 392) recruited in the community or during hospitalization in paediatric department, most of them after they attempted suicide. A three-way ANCOVA showed no gender or age effect but rather a strong group effect: hospitalized adolescents scored about 3 points below the community samples (ie towards an eveningness tendency). In each sample, the internal consistency for this 10-item measure was satisfactory (mean alpha = 0.76) and the same two-factor structure was found (Morningness and Planification) as shown by procrustes rotations. As expected, there was a negative correlation between the MESC scores and reported times of rising, of going to bed, of best intellectual and physical performances, but no correlation with the number of minutes of sleep needed. The test-retest stability was acceptable within a 8-month delay although the sample size was limited (n = 20). In line with literature data, we found a modest negative correlation about -0.20 in 2 of the samples with two depression measures (MADRS and CES-D). Finally, we assessed the effect of the month of birth on the MESC total score by a non-linear regression adjusted for age and gender that included a one-cycle cosinus function. We found that birth in March-April was associated with eveningness while birth in September-October was associated with morningness. The peak and nadir occur two months before those found in a large sample of young adults. However, this result could not be replicated in the sample of hospitalized adolescents suggesting that the effect might have been smoothed by a "pathological" factor. Reasons for this descrepancy and implications for developmental psychiatry are discussed. More precisely, we postulate a relationship between morningness and impulsivity-related personality traits. In conclusion, the MESC is a psychometrically sound instrument in need of further validity assessment.

Objective.-Researchers tried to explain the overlap between anxiety and depression by suggesting that some items of self-administered questionnaires were badly selected and that both constructs should rather be considered as multidimensional. Thus, we hypothesise that the Spielberger trait anxiety inventory (TAI) includes items related to depression.Method.-A non-clinical sample of 193 subjects filled out the TAI and the Hospitalised Anxiety-Depression Scale. Factors were postulated on the basis of item content and submitted to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Results.-We found five factors: a 10-item anxiety factor containing three factors, a four-item unsuccessfulness factor correlated with the HADS anhedonia factor, and a six-item happiness factor.Conclusion.-The TAI scale encompasses measures of anxiety, depression and well-being. Consequently, the overlap with other measures of depression may result from item selection. This work awaits replication in independent normal and pathological samples. (C) 2003 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.

Many anxiety and depression scales are commonly used, although the assumption that they all measure the same construct may be questioned. Thus, researchers have to pay attention to the nature of the scales they use. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was constructed in 1983 to allow a rapid and separate measure of depression and generalised anxiety. Surprisingly, since its introduction, there has been no comprehensive documentation of its psychometric properties. Therefore, as a contribution to assessing the construct validity of the HADS, we conducted a set of confirmatory factor analyses in a sample of 195 healthy students. None of the formerly proposed models fit our data. We were able to split the original Anxiety subscale into two components that we have labelled 'Anxiety' and 'Restlessness', while the original Depression subscale is slightly modified. The results are discussed from both clinical and theoretical points of view.