Awareness of illness and subjective experience of cognitive complaints in patients with bipolar I and bipolar II disorder

Objective: The authors' goal was to investigate the awareness of illness an d subjective cognitive complaints of patients with either bipolar I disorde r or bipolar II disorder during a phase of clinical stabilization. Method: They used a structured clinical interview, the Frankfurt Complaints Questio nnaire, to determine subjective cognitive complaints, and the Scale of Unaw areness of Mental Disorder to assess 57 consecutively enrolled patients wit h bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. Results: Patients with bipolar II disor der had significantly less insight and a higher level of subjective complai nts of stimulus overload than patients with bipolar I disorder. Conclusions : These results suggest that a severe deficit in self-awareness may constit ute a distinguishing psychopathological characteristic of patients with bip olar II disorder. Further studies are required to determine if there are as sociated neuropsychological dysfunctions.