OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to investigate the awareness of illness and subjective cognitive complaints of patients with either bipolar I disorder or bipolar II disorder during a phase of clinical stabilization. METHOD: They used a structured clinical interview, the Frankfurt Complaints Questionnaire, to determine subjective cognitive complaints, and the Scale of Unawareness of Mental Disorder to assess 57 consecutively enrolled patients with bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. RESULTS: Patients with bipolar II disorder had significantly less insight and a higher level of subjective complaints of stimulus overload than patients with bipolar I disorder. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a severe deficit in self-awareness may constitute a distinguishing psychopathological characteristic of patients with bipolar II disorder. Further studies are required to determine if there are associated neuropsychological dysfunctions.
Awareness of illness and subjective experience of cognitive complaints in patients with bipolar I and bipolar II disorder
DELL'OSSO, LILIANA;PINI, STEFANO;CASSANO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA
1999-01-01
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to investigate the awareness of illness and subjective cognitive complaints of patients with either bipolar I disorder or bipolar II disorder during a phase of clinical stabilization. METHOD: They used a structured clinical interview, the Frankfurt Complaints Questionnaire, to determine subjective cognitive complaints, and the Scale of Unawareness of Mental Disorder to assess 57 consecutively enrolled patients with bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. RESULTS: Patients with bipolar II disorder had significantly less insight and a higher level of subjective complaints of stimulus overload than patients with bipolar I disorder. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a severe deficit in self-awareness may constitute a distinguishing psychopathological characteristic of patients with bipolar II disorder. Further studies are required to determine if there are associated neuropsychological dysfunctions.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.