Bipolar Risk Calculator Developed for At-Risk Youth

In a studypublished last week inJAMA Psychiatry, researchers reported the development of a calculator to predict the onset of a bipolar spectrum disorder (BPSD) in at-risk youth.BPSD was defined underDSM-IV criteria as bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymic disorder, or bipolar not otherwise specified.The BPSD risk calculator was found to be approximately 76% accurate, which is on par with a recently developed risk calculator fornew-onset psychosis as well as risk calculators used in other areas of medicine.“We recognize that replication of these findings is warranted before the risk calculator can be confidently used for clinical decision making,” wrote lead author Danella Hafeman, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues. “In the interim, this risk calculator provides a pract ical tool for assessing the prognosis [of] and guiding monitoring and early intervention for offspring of parents with BD.”Hafeman and colleagues built their calculator by incorporating seven commonly occurring risk factors for BPSD that included measures of mood and anxiety, measures of general psychosocial functioning, and age at mood-disorder onset in the parent with bipolar disorder. They then tested their model on youth enrolled in the Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study, a community-based, longitudinal investigation that monitors children of parents with bipolar I or II disorder.The study encompassed 412 at-risk offspring who had not yet experienced a manic, hypomanic, or mi...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bipolar disorder Bipolar risk calculator bipolar spectrum disorder CALS risk of bipolar disorder University of Utrecht Source Type: research