Is the frequency of bi-polar disorder increasing among youth and young adults? In an article circulated by Reuters International, the answer appears to be “yes,” among younger individuals the chances of coming away from an office visit with the diagnosis of bi-polar disorder increased dramatically in the decade from 1994 to 2003.
Dr. Mark Olfson, from Columbia University, New York and New York State Psychiatric Institute, and colleagues compared increases between 1994-1995 and 2002-2003 in office visits that culminated in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder among individuals aged 19 and younger to that among adults aged 30 and older.
They found that outpatient visits with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in the younger age group increased approximately 40-fold, from 25 per 100,000 in 1994-1995 to 1,003 per 100,000 population in 2002-2003. During the same time, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in adults increased nearly 2-fold, from 905 to 1,679 per 100,000.
This finding, coupled with others about the incidence of bi-polar disorder, will spur questions about diagnostic criteria and ascertainment bias in assessment. Just as the question about “true” and “identified” incidence of Autism have been raised, there will be similar questions about bi-polar disorder.
The Reuters report is based on a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry, but the Web site for the journal does not yet show the September table of contents. However, one can get the Reuters story from many sites (e.g., Yahoo! news).
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