Outcome following a first manic episode: cross-national US and Taiwan comparison.

OBJECTIVES: Bipolar disorder (BD) is recognized as a significant psychiatric condition worldwide, yet little is known about cross-national differences in the course of illness. This information might clarify features of the disorder that are illness versus culturally specific. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify differential and shared outcome predictors in first-episode manic bipolar patients in Cincinnati, OH, USA and Taipei, Taiwan. METHODS: DSM-IV bipolar patients were identified at the time of their first manic or mixed episode and were prospectively followed in a naturalistic, longitudinal study for one year. Patients were recruited from a first psychiatric hospitalization at university-affiliated, urban hospitals in Taipei and Cincinnati. The primary outcome measures were remission, recovery, recurrence and percent of follow-up spent with affective symptoms and syndromes. Treatment adherence was also assessed, as were a number of possible mediator variables. RESULTS: The two patient groups showed a number of significant differences in index clinical presentation on characteristics previously associated with outcome in other studies (e.g., substance abuse). The patients in Taipei showed significantly better outcome on virtually all measures. Some of these findings reflected differences in index (mediator) variables, whereas others persisted after controlling for potential baseline confounds. CONCLUSIONS: The early course of BD varies between Chinese and American patients. Some of this variance results from demographic and clinical cross-national differences in premorbid variables. Other sources of variance remain to be identified.

Effects of co-occurring cannabis use disorders on the course of bipolar disorder after a first hospitalization for mania.

CONTEXT: Cannabis use disorders commonly co-occur in bipolar disorder; however, the effects of cannabis abuse on outcome have been minimally studied. OBJECTIVE: To identify how the sequence of the onsets of a cannabis use disorder and bipolar disorder is associated with the subsequent course of each condition. DESIGN: Inception cohort. SETTING: Academic medical center. PATIENTS: Patients (N = 144) were studied who met criteria for bipolar I disorder (manic or mixed), were 12 to 45 years old, and had no previous hospitalizations and minimal previous treatment. Patients were followed up for up to 5 years and included 33 in whom the onset of a cannabis use disorder preceded the onset of bipolar disorder (cannabis first), 36 in whom bipolar disorder onset preceded the onset of cannabis abuse (bipolar first), and 75 with bipolar disorder only. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Symptomatic recovery and recurrence of both conditions and percentage of follow-up time with affective and cannabis use disorder symptoms. RESULTS: The cannabis first group exhibited better recovery than the other groups, although when adjusted for potential mediator variables these results did not persist. Cannabis use was associated with more time in affective episodes and with rapid cycling. Most cannabis use disorders remitted immediately after hospitalization, followed by rapid rates of recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of the sequence of onsets of bipolar and cannabis use disorders were less pronounced than observed in co-occurring alcohol and bipolar disorders. Aggressive drug abuse treatment immediately after a first psychiatric hospitalization might decrease rates of recurrence and new cases of cannabis use disorder in the course of bipolar disorder.

Effects of co-occurring alcohol abuse on the course of bipolar disorder following a first hospitalization for mania.

CONTEXT: Alcohol-use disorders are common co-occurring conditions affecting bipolar patients, and this co-occurrence is negatively associated with outcome. OBJECTIVE: The primary goal of this study was to identify how the relative onsets of alcohol-use and bipolar disorders affect the subsequent courses of illness in patients with both conditions. DESIGN AND SETTING: Inception cohort at an academic medical center. PATIENTS: Patients meeting criteria for type I bipolar disorder, manic or mixed, with ages of 12 to 45 years, no prior hospitalizations, and minimal prior treatment. We enrolled 144 subjects who were followed up for up to 5 years, including 27 subjects in whom the onset of an alcohol-use disorder preceded the onset of bipolar disorder (Alcohol First), 33 subjects in whom bipolar disorder onset preceded or was concurrent with the onset of alcohol abuse (Bipolar First), and 83 subjects with bipolar disorder only (No Alcohol). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Symptomatic recovery and recurrence of both conditions and percentage of follow-up with affective episodes and affective and alcohol-use disorder symptoms. RESULTS: The Alcohol First group was older and more likely to recover and recover more quickly than the other groups. Affective symptomatic recurrence curves were similar among groups. The Bipolar First group spent more time with affective episodes and symptoms of an alcohol-use disorder during follow-up than the Alcohol First group. Hospitalization was associated with a period of decreased alcohol abuse, although recurrence of the alcohol-use disorder was common. CONCLUSIONS: The relative age at onset of alcohol-use and bipolar disorders is associated with differences in the course of both conditions. A first hospitalization for mania is associated with a period of recovery from comorbid alcohol abuse, suggesting this posthospital time may provide an opportunity to treat this co-occurring condition.

Parametric neurocognitive task design: a pilot study of sustained attention in adolescents with bipolar disorder.

BACKGROUND: Disruption in attention is one of the core features of bipolar disorder (BP). Therefore, neurocognitive paradigms assessing brain function in response to tasks of increasing attentional difficulty may be useful to clarify the neurophysiology of bipolar disorder. The aim of this study was to obtain pilot performance data using a parametric task of sustained attention that might be useful as an experimental paradigm for future functional neuroimaging studies. We hypothesized that task performance would worsen as task difficulty increased in manic and euthymic bipolar and healthy subjects. Additionally, we hypothesized that the groups would exhibit a similar decline in task performance as level of task difficulty increased and that within each level of task difficulty there would be similar performance among groups. METHODS: A novel parametric Continuous Performance Task-Identical Pairs (CPT-IP) version was administered to manic (N=10) and euthymic (N=10) adolescents with bipolar disorder and healthy controls (N=10). RESULTS: There were no statistically significant group differences in task performance as measured by discriminability, percent correct, false positive hits, and reaction time. However, within each group, performance on all measures worsened with increased attentional difficulty (p<0.0001). There were no statistically significant task difficulty by group interactions. Furthermore, medication exposure and comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder were not associated with most measures of task performance. However, BP subjects who were treated with medications had slower task performance compared with BP subjects who were unmedicated. LIMITATIONS: Larger studies examining the effects of specific medication classes on task performance are necessary. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this pilot study suggest that manic and euthymic BP patients do not exhibit attentional dysfunction as compared to healthy adolescents using a novel parametric version of the CPT-IP. Furthermore, our parametric CPT-IP version may be useful as a novel parametric neurocognitive paradigm for future functional neuroimaging studies of bipolar adolescents.

Sex, ethnicity, and antipsychotic medication use in patients with psychosis.

Previous studies suggested that African American patients with psychotic disorders receive higher doses of antipsychotic medication than white patients, are more likely to receive depot antipsychotics, and are less likely to be prescribed second-generation antipsychotics. African-American men in particular may be most likely to receive excessive doses of antipsychotics and depot antipsychotics, although this is less clear. Few studies have examined how sex and ethnicity interactions affect treatment of psychotic disorders. In this study, we examined whether the interaction of sex and ethnicity predicted the use of depot antipsychotics and the dosing of antipsychotics in a sample of inpatients with psychotic disorders. The inpatient records of 167 patients with psychotic disorders were evaluated for type and dose of medication at discharge. African-American men received depot antipsychotic medication more frequently than African-American women and white patients. This difference persisted after controlling for sociodemographic and clinical variables. African-American men and women with psychotic mood disorders were also more likely to be discharged on high antipsychotic doses compared with white patients. There were no ethnic or sex differences in the dosing of antipsychotics for the treatment of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. There were also no ethnic or sex differences in the use of second-generation antipsychotics.

Ethnicity and first-rank symptoms in patients with psychosis.

Previous studies suggested that African-American patients with psychotic disorders present more commonly with first-rank symptoms. However, it was unclear whether these results reflected true differences among African- and Euro-Americans in symptom presentation or instead resulted from raters being more likely to assign first-rank symptoms to African-American patients. In this study, a total of 195 African- and Euro-American patients presenting for hospitalization with psychosis were evaluated using structured diagnostic and symptom rating instruments; this evaluation was audiotaped. The tapes were transcribed and all cues indicating the patient's ethnicity were edited from the transcript and from medical records. Two board-certified psychiatrists then evaluated the transcripts and medical records in order to make consensus expert diagnosis and rate first-rank symptoms. Ratings of first-rank symptoms in African- and Euro-American patients were compared between ethnicity-blinded expert consensus assessments and the unblinded structured interview. African-American men received higher first-rank symptom ratings than the remaining patient groups by both ethnicity-blinded expert consensus and unblinded structured interview. African-American men also had significantly more total psychotic symptoms than Euro-American men. However, the ethnically blinded expert consensus did not find an increased rate of schizophrenia in the African-American men. These findings indicate that psychotic symptom presentation should be evaluated in the context of other symptoms (e.g., affective symptoms) in diagnostic assessments in order to prevent misdiagnoses of schizophrenia.

Ethnicity and diagnosis in patients with affective disorders.

BACKGROUND: Clinically, African American psychiatric patients are disproportionately diagnosed with schizophrenia compared with white patients. Why this occurs is unknown. Extending prior work, the authors hypothesized that first-rank symptoms distract clinicians so that they fail to identify affective disorders in African Americans. METHOD: 195 African American and white patients with at least 1 psychotic symptom (delusions, hallucinations, or prominent thought disorder) at admission were recruited from January 1, 1998, through May 31, 2001. Each patient received 3 independent DSM-IV diagnoses: a clinical diagnosis, a structured-interview diagnosis, and an expert-consensus diagnosis. The expert-consensus diagnoses were derived from the structured interviews, which were audiotaped and transcribed, and medical records. After reviewing edited transcripts and medical records from which ethnic cues had been eliminated, 2 psychiatrists assigned expert-consensus diagnoses and first-rank symptom ratings. For the 79 patients who received an expert-consensus diagnosis of an affective disorder, clinical variables, diagnoses, and first-rank symptoms were compared between African American (N = 39) and white (N = 40) patients. RESULTS: Seventy-nine (41%) of 195 patients were diagnosed with an affective disorder by expert consensus. African American men with an expert-consensus affective disorder were significantly (p <.03) more likely than other patients to be diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder by clinical assessment and structured interview. Although first-rank symptoms were more commonly identified in African American men, this finding did not explain the difference in diagnoses. Post hoc analyses suggested that African American men diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder were more likely than other patients to have been identified during structured interview as having psychotic symptoms in the absence of affective symptoms. CONCLUSION: The apparent misdiagnosis of schizophrenia in African-Americans with mood disorders cannot be ascribed to differences in first-rank symptoms. However, it may be due to a perception that psychotic symptoms are more chronic or persistent than affective symptoms in these patients.