Illness characteristics and their association with prescription patterns for bipolar I disorder

Introduction: The present study explores the relationships among psychotrop ic medications, illness-related parameters, patient demography, suicidality , and levels of functioning in a voluntary bipolar case registry. Methods: Four. hundred and fifty-seven subjects with bipolar T disorder wer e selected from a voluntary registry for subjects with bipolar illness. Dem ographic characteristics, psychotropic medications, age at onset of illness , duration of illness, number of hospitalizations, the ability to live inde pendently, employment and driving status as well as the history of suicidal attempts were obtained through a structured phone interview. Results: subjects treated with antidepressants had a shorter duration of il lness, while patients treated with antipsychotic drugs had an earlier onset of illness. The number of hospitalizations for mania was fewer among patie nts takings a combination of lithium and carbamazepine as compared to patie nts not receiving them, while subjects taking neuroleptics had more hospita lizations as compared to subjects not receiving them. The number of psychot ropic agents prescribed correlated positively with the number of hospitaliz ations For depressive episodes. Curiously, no correlations were found betwe en the types of psychotropic agents prescribed and the levels of functionin g or a history of suicidal attempts. Interestingly, our results suggest tha t more than half of the subjects were unable to live independently or to wo rk due to their illness. Also, more than 50% of the subjects had at least o ne suicidal attempt, the majority occurred during depressive episodes. Conclusions: Our results suggest that subjects with bipolar I disorder have high rate of suicidal attempts and may have serious functional impairments .