Amparo Tatay-Manteiga1, Omar Cauli2, Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos3, Erin E Michalak4, Flavio Kapczinski5, Vicent Balanzá-Martínez3. 1. Service of Psychiatry, University General Hospital, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: amparo.tatay@hotmail.com. 2. Department of Nursing, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. 3. Teaching Unit of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Valencia, CIBERSAM, Valencia, Spain. 4. Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. 5. McMaster's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Hamilton, ON, Canada; Department of Psychiatry of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with significant neurocognitive and functional impairment, which may progress across stages. However, the potential progression of subjective cognitive complaints and quality of life (QoL) has not been addressed. Our main objective was to assess subjective cognitive complaints and QoL on euthymic patients with BD and their healthy siblings. METHODS: Four groups were compared: euthymic patients with type I BD in the early (n = 25) and late (n = 23) stages, their healthy siblings (latent stage; n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 21). Cognitive complaints and QoL were assessed using the COBRA and WHO-QoLBREF questionnaires, respectively. RESULTS: Late-stage patients had greater number of subjective cognitive complaints and reported a worse QoL compared to the other groups. Early-stage patients also had more cognitive complaints than controls and siblings, although differences were not significant. Siblings and controls reported similar QoL. LIMITATIONS: the most important limitation of this study is the criterion used to define the early and late stages of BD, as currently there is no consensus and previous studies have used different criteria. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to examine subjective cognition and QoL in patients with BD and siblings. Our results raise the possibility that burden of cognitive complaints increase with disorder progression, in tandem with deterioration in subjective QoL. That would support a clinical staging model of BD. This hypothesis remains to be confirmed by a longitudinal analysis.
BACKGROUND:Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with significant neurocognitive and functional impairment, which may progress across stages. However, the potential progression of subjective cognitive complaints and quality of life (QoL) has not been addressed. Our main objective was to assess subjective cognitive complaints and QoL on euthymic patients with BD and their healthy siblings. METHODS: Four groups were compared: euthymic patients with type I BD in the early (n = 25) and late (n = 23) stages, their healthy siblings (latent stage; n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 21). Cognitive complaints and QoL were assessed using the COBRA and WHO-QoLBREF questionnaires, respectively. RESULTS: Late-stage patients had greater number of subjective cognitive complaints and reported a worse QoL compared to the other groups. Early-stage patients also had more cognitive complaints than controls and siblings, although differences were not significant. Siblings and controls reported similar QoL. LIMITATIONS: the most important limitation of this study is the criterion used to define the early and late stages of BD, as currently there is no consensus and previous studies have used different criteria. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to examine subjective cognition and QoL in patients with BD and siblings. Our results raise the possibility that burden of cognitive complaints increase with disorder progression, in tandem with deterioration in subjective QoL. That would support a clinical staging model of BD. This hypothesis remains to be confirmed by a longitudinal analysis.