Social adjustment and self-esteem in remitted patients with mood disorders

Mood disorders are characterized by manic and depressive episodes alternati ng with normal mood. While social function is heavily impaired during episo des of illness, there are conflicting opinions about inter-episode function . The present paper focuses on self-esteem and social adjustment in remitte d mood disorders patients. Patients with mood disorders (99 bipolar and 86 major depressive subjects, in remission) were compared with a group of 100 control subjects. The self- esteem scale (SES) and the social adjustment scale (SAS) were used to measu re self-esteem and social adjustment, respectively, in both groups of subje cts. Patients with mood disorder exhibited worse social adjustment and lower sel f-esteem than control subjects, These results strongly confirm previous obs ervations of poor inter-episode function in patients with mood disorder. (C ) 1999 Elsevier, Paris.