Childhood Trauma in Bipolar Affective Disorder: A Case Control Study

OBJECTIVE: Childhood adversity plays a major role in the course and expression of bipolar disorder (BD). There are only few Indian studies attempted to find association between and various characteristic of Bipolar disorder. Hence, this study was conducted to compare the association of Bipolar disorder and age & sex matched healthy controls with respect of childhood trauma. METHODS: All the diagnosed cases of Bipolar Disorder as per inclusion criteria were included. Retrospective assessment of childhood trauma was conducted using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) in 50 consecutive outpatients with bipolar disorder and 50 age & sex matched healthy controls. RESULTS: Mean age of the groups was 36.14 yrs and 80% were male. All the subtypes of childhood trauma were significantly associated with bipolar disorder as compared to healthy controls. Among all subtypes, emotional abuse (OR 27.56, CI 3.5–216.7) was most significant. CONCLUSIONS: All the subtypes of childhood trauma were associated with bipolar disorder. Childhood trauma with all subtypes were significant and amongst them emotional abuse appears to exert the biggest impact in this respect. However, multi-centric study with large sample size is required to further substantiate above association.