Risk factors of cycle acceleration in acutely admitted patients with bipolar disorder

OBJECTIVE: Finseth PI, Morken G, Malt UF, Andreassen OA, Vaaler AE. Risk factors of cycle acceleration in acutely admitted patients with bipolar disorder. To identify risk factors associated with cycle acceleration (CA), that is, progressive decrease in duration of syndrome-free intervals between affective episodes, in acutely admitted patients with bipolar disorder (BD). METHOD: All patients (n = 210) with BD I (67%) and BD II (33%) (DSM-IV) acutely admitted to a hospital serving a catchment area were compared in retrospect with regard to a positive or negative history of CA. Putative risk factors of CA with a P-value <0.05 in uni-variate tests were secondly entered into a logistic regression model. RESULTS: The logistic regression model was statistically significant (P < 0.0001) and explained between 45.3% and 60.5% of the variance of CA status. 83.7% of the cases were correctly classified with a sensitivity of 87.2% and a specificity of 80.4%. Unique significant risk factors of CA were increasing severity of affective episodes (odds ratio (OR) = 28.8), BD II (OR = 3.3), hypomanic/manic episode induced by an antidepressant and/or alcohol (OR = 3.3), and female gender (OR = 3.1). CONCLUSION: The clinical factors associated with CA may help targeting patients with BD with a course aggravation, and are in line with previously reported neuropathological processes of illness progression.