Bipolar disorder (BD) and epilepsy are the chronic recurrent diseases with several similarities in pathogenic mechanisms. There are high prevalence of comorbidity between affective disorders and epilepsy. However, most recent studies focused on association epilepsy with depression, while lack of scientific data about relationship between epilepsy and BD.

This study examined the frequency of bipolar disorder in epileptic patients.

To improve the diagnostic tool for BD in epileptic patients.

We observed 50 patients with epilepsy (PE). In this study, the symptoms of BD were measured by the Hypomania Checklist-32 (HCL-32).

The mean age of the entire cohort was 40 (SD = 19.2) years. The proportion of females were 62%. The mean score using HCL-32 were 11.1 (SD = 4.5, range: 3–20) with 17 (34%) scoring above 14, the cut-off points for the basic version of the HCL-32. Among of high score subgroup there were 6 men and 11 women, maximum age was 74 and minimum 19, the mean age of the subgroup were 37 years. The patients 8 out of 17 (47%) received a score of 20 or more (maximum of 37) on the bipolar index that corresponds to ≥ 20% probability BD.

The results of the study observed a high prevalence of BD in PE. Future research addressing (1) using of psychiatric examination instruments to assess affective symptoms among PE and (2) treatment management of affective symptoms by antiepileptic drugs might result in better treatment outcomes among patient with comorbidities of BD and PE.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.