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Recurrence in affective disorder

I. Case register study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Lars Vedel Kessing ,
Tom Gert Bolwig ,
Per Kragh Andersen  and
Preben Bo Mortensen
Lars Vedel Kessing*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Copenhagen, Rigshospitalet
Tom Gert Bolwig
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Copenhagen, Rigshospitalet
Per Kragh Andersen
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen
Preben Bo Mortensen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatric Demography, University of Aarhus, Psychiatric Hospital, Risskov, Denmark
*
Lars Vedel Kessing, Department of Psychiatry, Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, DK 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark. Fax: 3545-6218
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Abstract

Background

In recent years, studies of the risk of recurrence in affective disorder in relation to the number of prior episodes have given contradictory results.

Method

Survival analysis was used to calculate the rate of recurrence after successive episodes in a case register study including all hospital admissions with primary affective disorder in Denmark during 1971–1993. A total of 20 350 first-admission patients were discharged with a diagnosis of affective disorder, depressive or manic/cyclic type.

Results

The rate of recurrence increased with the number of previous episodes in both unipolar and bipolar disorder. Initially, the two types of disorders followed markedly different courses, but later in the course of the illness the rate of recurrence was the same for the two disorders.

Conclusions

The course of severe unipolar and bipolar disorder seems to be progressive in nature despite the effect of treatment.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 172 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 23 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

References and acceptance dates are at the end of the accompanying paper

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