Introduction to New Research: Understanding the Issues in Child and Adolescent Bipolar Disorder

Debate still exists in the psychiatric field over whether pediatric bipolar disorder is a valid diagnosis. Many clinical features of this disorder distinguish it from the well-established criteria that define adult-onset bipolar disorder. Perhaps the most salient of these is the high prevalence of irritability as the major presenting symptom as opposed to the euphoria more often seen with the adult disorder. In addition to irritability, pediatric bipolar disorder tends to present with a mixed or continuous presentation of mania in contrast to the discrete manic episodes classically described for bipolar disorder. Research in adults has revealed that bipolar disorder causes high morbidity, with patients symptomatically ill for 47% of the weeks in their life following diagnosis. Depressive symptoms and subsyndromal depression predominate a patient's life with this disorder.