Subsyndromal States in Bipolar Disorder

BACKGROUND: Despite adequate treatment, patients with bipolar disorder suffer from subsyndromal symptoms. This study has been done to see the association of subsyndromal symptoms with age of onset, duration of illness, duration of episodes, and number of episodes. AIMS: To know the prevalence of subsyndromal symptoms and their relationship with age of onset, total duration of illness, number of episodes, and duration of episodes in patients with bipolar disorder in remission. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was cross sectional and hospital based. One hundred patients, aged between 18 and 65 years, diagnosed as bipolar disorder according to Research Diagnostic Criteria of ICD-10, and with good compliance with the prophylactic medications, score of ≤5 on Beck's Mania Rating Scale (BMRS) and score ≤8 on Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) were recruited by the purposive sampling method. Descriptive statistics were used to describe various sample characteristics. Group differences for categorical variables were examined with the chi-square test, whereas an independent 't' test was used for continuous variables. RESULTS: The most common manic symptom was a decrease in sleep (49%), followed by an increase in verbal activity (39%), hostility (37%), and increase in motor activity (33.33%). The subsyndromal manic group had a lower age of onset (58.8%), males (82.4%), unemployed (23.5%), educated (80.4%). There was no significant difference between with and without subsyndromal mania groups with respect to age, age of onset, duration of illness, number of episode, and average duration of episode. CONCLUSION: Subsyndromal manic symptoms are prevalent and have no relationship with current age, age of onset of illness, duration of illness, number of episode, and average duration of illness in patient with bipolar disorder in remission.