Effects of comorbid anxiety disorders on the course of bipolar disorder-I

Although comorbid anxiety disorders (AD) are quite frequent in bipolar disorders (BD), data on how this comorbidity affects BD are limited. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the frequency of comorbid AD in Turkish patients with bipolar disorder-I (BD-I) and the effects of comorbid AD on the course of BD-I.

114 patients with BD-I were included in the study. All patients were diagnosed by a psychiatrist. The patients were divided into two groups as BD-I patients with lifetime comorbid AD (BDI-CAD) or those without comorbid AD (BDI).

37 (32.46%) patients had one or more comorbid lifetime AD. The numbers of admissions to the outpatient clinic within calendar year 2013 (P = 0.014), the number of lifetime mood episodes (P = 0.019) and the duration of BD (P = 0.007) were higher in the BDI-CAD group compared with the BDI group. There was a strong relationship between the duration of the disorder and the number of episodes (r = 0.583, P < 0.001). Partial correlation analyses showed that the number of admission to the outpatient clinic correlated significantly with the frequency of episodes (P = 0.007, r = 0.282).

We found that the patients with BDI-CAD use the healthcare system more frequently than the BDI patients. This suggests that AD comorbidity may have a negative influence on the course of BD-I and it is a factor that should be considered in the clinical follow-up.