CLINICAL DEFINITIONS OF SENSITIZATION IN AFFECTIVE-DISORDER - A CASE REGISTER STUDY OF PREVALENCE AND PREDICTION

The observation of a progressive recurrence in affective disorder has been interpreted as a process of sensitisation. The clinical applicabi lity of such a theoretical model was investigated using the Danish cas e register, which includes all hospital admissions with primary affect ive disorder in Denmark from 1971 to 1993. A total of 8,737 patients a dmitted to a psychiatric hospital at least twice constituted the study sample. Information on treatment intervention was not available. Meas ures describing the initial course of admission episodes were defined in three different ways: 1) a short period between initial episodes 2) decreasing intervals between initial episodes or 3) a combination of 1) and 2). Socio-demographic variables such as gender, age at onset an d marital status differentiated between the three types of measures an d the measures also demonstrated different effects in predicting the r isk of further recurrence. In unipolar disorder, patients with a decre asing interval between episodes had the greatest risk of further recur rence, whereas for bipolar patients, a short period between episodes p layed a more important role than the sequence of episodes in itself. ( C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.