Bipolar Disorder Patients Follow-up (BDPF): methods and materials

BACKGROUND The Bipolar Disorder Patients Follow-up (BDPF) project is a longitudinal, prospective and naturalistic study. The purpose of the present report is to introduce the project, elaborate its methods, and present the reliability data of the utilized symptoms rating scales. METHODS The sampling started in May 2008 and is still in progress. The probands are assessed at the beginning of the sampling and then 2 and 6 months later and then every 6 months using several instruments to identify psychiatric comorbidities, symptoms severity, quality of life, attempted suicide rate, treatment compliance, and some other factors. RESULTS The results could lead to increase the clinicians' awareness about the clinical picture of this disorder in Iranian patients. CONCLUSIONS The present project could decrease to some extent the current shortcomings in Iran's psychiatric data at least about one of the major psychiatric disorders known as the eighth result which cause medical disability over the world.