Consequences of delayed diagnosis of bipolar disorders.

Over 60% of individuals with bipolar disorders report that they received between 1-4 prior diagnoses, with delay in diagnosis being a particular problem in females with bipolar II disorders. Clinical recognition of bipolarity may take up to 10 years, during which time individuals may have received a number of inadequate or inappropriate treatments. This paper describes the adverse clinical, functional and economic consequences of the failure to identify cases of bipolar disorder at the earliest possible time.