Bipolar Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Bipolar, including details on bipolar disorder, symptoms, treatment, depression, medication.

Clinical differences between bipolar and unipolar depression.

Forty L, Smith D, Jones L, Jones I, Caesar S, Cooper C, Fraser C, Gordon-Smith K, Hyde S, Farmer A, McGuffin P, Craddock N

Department of Psychological Medicine, Henry Wellcome Building, Wales School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Heath Park, Cardiff CF14 4XN, UK. craddockn@cf.ac.uk.

It is commonly - but wrongly - assumed that there are no important differences between the clinical presentations of major depressive disorder and bipolar depression. Here we compare clinical course variables and depressive symptom profiles in a large sample of individuals with major depressive disorder (n=593) and bipolar disorder (n=443). Clinical characteristics associated with a bipolar course included the presence of psychosis, diurnal mood variation and hypersomnia during depressive episodes, and a greater number of shorter depressive episodes. Such features should alert a clinician to a possible bipolar course. This is important because optimal management is not the same for bipolar and unipolar depression.

Published 2 May 2008 in Br J Psychiatry, 192: 388-9.
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