Personality tests used in this review
| Test | What it measures | Test information |
| MMPI [11, 12] | Personality characteristics on 10 clinical scales: Hypochondriasis Depression Hysteria Psychopathic deviate Masculinity/femininity Paranoia Psychasthenia Schizophrenia Hypomania Social introversion | 567 items True/false |
| BIS/BAS [7] | Appetite and aversive motives | BAS regulates appetitive motives, moves toward something desired, sensitive to reward and escape from punishment, and associated with positive affect and optimism BIS regulates aversive motives, moves away from something aversive, sensitive to punishment and nonreward, and related to fear and anxiety |
| DS14 and DS16 [4, 6, 13] | Type D personality | DS14 contains 14 items and a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (false) to 4 (true) is used to measure the subjects’ personalities DS16 contains 8 items with negative affectivity and 8 items about social inhibition answered with a 5-point Likert rating scale. |
| The Big Five [7] | Five main domains of personality (OCEAN) | 50 questions to rate on how true they are about the person on a 5-point Likert-scale (1, disagree; 3, neutral; 5, agree) |
| NEO-FFI [13] | Five main domains of personality (OCEAN) | 60 questions assessing the essentials of personality |
| Mini-IPIP [7] | Five main domains of personality (OCEAN) | 20 questions containing 4 items for each of the Big Five traits indicating the degree the statement applies to them on a 5-point scale |
| DOCCO [7] | Stress, personality and lifestyle | 200 questions |
| CBA [14] | State and trait anxiety, personality characteristics, psychophysiological disorders, fears and phobias, and depressive behaviours | Includes an anamnestic schedule providing information on habits, personal history, sleep, eating behaviour, work, etc. |
| WAYS [7] | Different domains or aspects of personality, including basic descriptive traits, motivation and coping skills | 66 items to measure thoughts and actions used in stressful situations Measures 8 coping factors: confrontive coping distancing self-controlling seeking social support accepting responsibility escape avoidance planful problem solving positive reappraisal |
| SCL-90-R [16] | Psychiatric symptoms | Multidimensional, self-report symptom inventory consisting of 90 items divided into 9 symptom dimensions: somatisation obsessive–compulsive interpersonal sensitivity depression anxiety hostility phobic anxiety paranoid ideation psychoticism |
| EPQ [16] | Personality traits measuring psychoticism, neuroticism, extraversion and lying | 4-item measures of psychoticism (social psychopath, solitary, troublesome, cruel and inhumane traits), neuroticism (anxious, worrying, moody and frequently depressed), extraversion (sociable, craves excitement, carefree and optimistic) and lying (social desirability) |
NEO-FFI: NEO Five Factor Inventory; IPIP: International Personality Item Pool; CBA: Cognitive Behavioural Assessment; WAYS: Ways of Coping; SCL-90-R: Symptom Checklist-90 Revision; OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.