Prevalence of general medical comorbidity in Brazilian outpatients with bipolar disorder

  • Camila Moreira, University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Dr Elisa Brietzke, Bipolar Disorder Research Program, Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil, Brazil
  • Prof Dr Beny Lafer, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, Brazil

Objective: To describe the prevalence of medical illnesses in a sample of Bipolar Disorder (BD) type I patients.
Methods: Clinical records of 196 patients with BD type I were reviewed for identification of general medical comorbidities.
Results: The mean age of the sample was 42.3 years (SD = 11.6 years) and 69.4 % was composed by female patients. Median of duration of illness was 18.5 years with interquartile range of 7.5 years. Seventy-one percent of patients have at least one medical comorbidity. The most prevalent conditions were: migraine (29.6%), hypothyroidism (21.9%), traumatic brain injuries (10.2%), hypertension (9.7%), epilepsy (8.2%), asthma (6.6%), diabetes (4.1%), stroke (1.5%) and hyperthyroidism (1%). Duration of illness was positively associated with presence of medical comorbidities (p = 0,026).
Conclusions: This study was in concordance with previous reports that showed very high rates of medical comorbidity in bipolar patients.In our study the vast majority of patients presented at least one general medical disorder. There are scarce studies addressing medical comorbidities in Brazilian population with BD and this report can contribute to improve diagnostic vigilance, assessment and treatment planning.