Antecedents of severe affective (mood) disorders. Patients examined as children or adolescents and as adults.

A random selection was made of 100 adults, diagnosed as suffering from serious affective disorders (DSM-III), who had been cared for in the University Psychiatric Hospital in Geneva. One-third of this adult population (31%) was found to have consulted the child psychiatry service in Geneva (81.4% more than the general population). Patients suffering from manic disorders had consulted this service significantly more often during childhood. Our results showed that patients had a known psychopathology in childhood and adolescence that distinguished them from the control group (P < 0.005): 45% suffered from an affective disorder, in particular manic and hypomanic disorders (29%). The control group was made up of a group of randomly selected adult psychiatric patients, matched for age and sex, who had not been diagnosed as suffering from affective (mood) disorders, and who had also been examined as children or adolescents. Correlations between the childhood pathology and that of the adults were specially for manic disorders. These data are relevant for clinical assessment, treatment and prevention.