M. Bourgeois et al., FEATURES AND PREDICTIVE FACTORS OF BIPOLA RITY IN DEPRESSIVE-DISORDERS - STUDY ON 219 PATIENTS HOSPITALIZED FOR DEPRESSION, Annales medico-psychologiques, 154(10), 1996, pp. 577-588
Bipolar disorders inclucle Bipolar I (BP I), Bipolar II (BP II), which
are official categories of the DSM-IV (and ICD-10). Bipolar III (BP I
II) could be added to this ''bipolar spectrum'', with cyclothymia, hyp
erthymic personality, etc. Predictive factors of bipolarity have been
proposed by Akiskal to predict the BP I (1983) and BP II (1995) conver
sion of ''pseudo-unipolar depressions''.In a personal sample of 219 de
pressed inpatients (DSM-III-R) - 107 unipolar patients and 112 of the
''bipolar spectrum'' (BP I, BP II, BP III) - we could confirm the vali
dity of 6 predictors of bipolarity: pharmacological hypomania, postpar
tum episode, bipolar family history, psychotic depression, retarded de
pression, onset before 25 years. The presence of 3 or more of these va
riables makes very highly probable the bipolar nature of a depressive
disorder. The interest is practical as well as theoretical: treatment
of BP and treatment of UP disorders are different.