Differential interactions between comorbid anxiety disorders and substance use disorder in rapid cycling bipolar I or...

Anxiety disorders (AD) and substance use disorders (SUD) commonly co-occur with bipolar disorder. This study was undertaken to assess AD-SUD-bipolar subtype interactions.

Extensive clinical interview and MINI were used to ascertain DSM-IV diagnoses of rapid cycling bipolar I (RCBPDI) or II (RCBPDII) disorder, SUDs, and ADs including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Data at the initial assessment of four studies was used to compare the prevalence differences in ADs between RCBPDI and RCBPDII by using protocol-defined SUD categories, "Never," "Lifetime, but not recent," or "Recent."

Five-hundred sixty-six of 568 patients (RCBPDI n=320, RCBPDII n=246) were eligible for analyses. In the "Never" group (n=191), patients with RCBPDI and RCBPDII had similar risk for ADs. In the "Lifetime, but not recent" group (n=195), RCBPDI patients had significantly higher risks for GAD (OR=3.29), PD (OR=2.95), but not OCD, compared with their RCBPDII counterparts. Similarly, in the "Recent" group (n=180), RCBPDI patients also had significantly higher risks for GAD (OR=3.6), PD (OR=3.8), but not OCD, compared with their RCBPDII counterparts.

Data were cross-sectional and not all ADs were included.

In this large cohort of patients with rapid cycling bipolar disorder, risk for having GAD, PD, but not OCD increased significantly in patients with bipolar I disorder compared to their bipolar II counterparts when a history of SUD was present. However, there were no significant differences in the risk for GAD, PD, or OCD between the subtypes among patients without a history of SUD.