Resumen de The impact of the number of episodes on the outcome of Bipolar Disorder

S. Di Marzo, A. Giordano, I. Pacchiarotti, Francesc Colom, J. Sánchez Moreno, Eduard Vieta i Pascual

• Background:

  Bipolar disorder is a highly recurrent severe psychiatric dis- order. The number of episodes has been found consistently associated with poor outcome.

  It has been suggested that bipolar patients with long duration of illness and highly recur- rent course show great impairment of global functioning.

  Objectives:

  The aim of this study is to assess the clinical course and outcome of patients with bipolar disorder I and II with a high number of mood episodes.

  Methods:

  We compared a group of bipolar I and II subjects whose number of episode w as higher than ten (N = 167) with a similar-size representative sample of bipolar patients whose number of episodes was lower or equal than ten (N = 131).

  Results:

  Bipolar patients with more than 10 episodes have a more severe outcome of bipolar disorder. Qualification and occupational status was clearly worse for the highly recurrent group which showed a predominance of depressive polarity.

  Conclusions:

  These data suggest that bipolar patients with a highly recurrent course have significant functional impairment. With the passing of time, bipolar illness tends to be ruled by depressive features. Treatment strategies may need to address this issue.