Clinical Course in Patients With Melancholic and Nonmelancholic Bipolar Depression

The aim of the current study was to compare the longitudinal clinical course of patients with a history of melancholic and nonmelancholic bipolar depression. Seventy-seven euthymic outpatients with bipolar disorder were categorized as melancholic or nonmelancholic through the clinician-rated Sydney Melancholia Prototype Index. Clinical course was assessed for a period longer than 48 months by time spent ill, density of affective episodes, severity and duration of depressive episodes, and time to depressive recurrence. The mean follow-up time was 69.05 months. Patients with melancholic depressions had more severe and longer depressive episodes during follow-up, whereas patients with nonmelancholic depressions had a shorter time to depressive recurrence and more subsyndromal depressive symptoms and affective instability. These findings highlight the heterogeneity inherent to the current construct of bipolar depression and position melancholia as an interesting target for comparison with nonmelancholic depressions in other external validators in the field of bipolar disorder.