Obsessive compulsive symptoms in bipolar disorder patients: a comorbid disorder or a subtype of bipolar disorder?

Comorbidity of bipolar and anxiety disorders: An overview of trends in research

Over the last three decades burgeoning research has shown that anxiety disorder comorbidity is not only highly prevalent in bipolar disorder (BD), but it also adversely impacts the course, outcome, and treatment of BD. The present review provides an overview of the current trends in research on comorbid anxiety and BDs based on prior reviews and meta-analyses (n = 103), epidemiological surveys, and large-scale clinical studies. The results reiterated the fact that at least half of those with BD are likely to develop an anxiety disorder in their lifetimes and a third of them will manifest an anxiety disorder at any point of time. All types of anxiety disorders were equally common in BD. However, there was a wide variation in rates across different sources, with most of this discrepancy being accounted for by methodological differences between reports. Comorbid anxiety disorders negatively impacted the presentation and course of BD. This unfavourable clinical profile led to poorer outcome and functioning and impeded treatment of BD. Despite the extensive body of research there was paucity of data on aetiology and treatment of anxiety disorder comorbidity in BD. Nevertheless, the substantial burden and unique characteristics of this comorbidity has important clinical and research implications.

Comorbid bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder:state of the art in pediatric patients

A full-text Chinese translation of this article will be available at http://dx.doi.org/10.11919/j.issn.1002-0829.215128 on April 25, 2016.

Heredity in comorbid bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder patients

Partly due to the overlap of symptom groupings in DSM, psychiatric comorbidity is extremely common. One of the most common and difficult to manage comorbid conditions is the co-occurrence of bipolar disorder (BD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the key nosological question about this condition - whether they are two distinct disorders or a subtype of one of the disorders - remains unresolved. In order to help address this unanswered question, we updated our recent systematic review, searching the electronic databases MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO to specifically investigate the heredity in BD-OCD patients. We identified a total of 8 relevant papers, the majority of which found that, compared to non-BD-OCD patients, BD-OCD patients were more likely to have a family history for mood disorders and less likely to have a family history for OCD. These results support the view that the majority of cases of comorbid BD-OCD are, in fact, BD cases. If confirmed in larger, more focused studies, this conclusion would have important nosological and clinical implications.