How seasonal changes affect people with Bipolar Disorder

What is it about?

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic illness characterized by recurrent acute episodes of low mood and energy ("depression"), alternating with episodes of euphoria and excessive energy ("mania-hypomania") that affects 2% of people worldwide. BD entails a high personal cost, for their individuals and for society at multiple levels. Some people with BD have a tendency to manifest "depressive" or "manic" episodes during specific moments of the year; this tendency is called "seasonal pattern" and it is present in up to 15% of people with BD. Patients with a seasonal pattern might have a different course of BD compared to other patients. In our study, we aimed to explore the clinical characteristics of patients with BD and a seasonal pattern, compared to patients with BD without a seasonal pattern. We recruited 708 patients (503 with BD type I and 205 with BD type II), and 117 (16.5%) had a seasonal pattern. Our results outline a novel positive association of seasonal pattern with a tendency to manifest mood episodes of both polarities (i.e., depressive and manic) during the course of the illness, BD type II, a family history of mood disorder, and with fewer aggressiveness-related symptoms. Also, patients with seasonal pattern showed a course of BD with a biphasic pattern, with a tendency to show yearly manic episodes during spring-summer, and depressive episodes during autumn-winter.

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Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This is the first study exploring the presence and the clinical correlates of seasonal pattern in a large sample of people with BD.

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