The effects of depressed, anxious and suspicious moods on patients' responses to the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was tested in 115 patients suffering from depressive, anxiety and paranoid schizophrenic disorders. Patients' personality assessment scores improved when they remitted but did not improve when they failed to remit. Relatives' assessment of patients' personality yielded scores which were close to patients' own assessment scores after remission. Because the mood state affects tests designed to measure premorbid personality traits , caution is necessary in looking for personality disorders during disorders which disturb patients' mood.