[Lifetime Psychiatric Disorders: a Comparision Study Between Offspring of Parents With Bipolar Disorder Type-I Versus the Offspring of Community Controls Parents].

INTRODUCTION: Literature reports show that Bipolar Offspring (BO) present with a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Comparison between BO and Control Parent Offspring (CPO) may help to identify which psychopathological findings are specific to this high-risk group.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the psychopathological characteristics between a group of BO type-I and a group of CPO, by identifying the presence of psychiatric disorders according the DSM-IV-TR.

METHODS: A descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional and comparative study was conducted with 127 offspring of parents with bipolar disorder type-I from the multimodal intervention program (PRISMA) and with 150 CPO between 6 and 30 years of age. Subjects were evaluated with validated diagnostic interviews (K-SADS-PL and DIGS).

RESULTS: The BO group showed higher frequencies for bipolar disorder (Prevalence Ratio [PR]=17.70; 95% confidence interval [CI]; 1.02 - 306.83), bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (PR=23.07, 95% CI; 2.8 - 189.0, P=.0001), disorders due to psychoactive substance use (PR=9.52, 95% CI; 2.93 -30.90), oppositional defiant disorder (PR=4.10, 95% CI; 1.70 -9.89), posttraumatic stress disorder (PR=3.90, 95% CI 1.30 -11.66), disorder due to alcohol use (PR=3.84, 95% CI; 1.28 -11.48), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (PR=2.26, 95% CI; 1.37 -3.75), and major depressive disorder (PR=2.25, 95% CI; 1.13 -4.50). Statistically significant differences were also found in the CGAS and GAF functional scales, with lower scores for the BO group.

CONCLUSION: These findings confirm previous literature reports showing that BO have higher rates of affective and non-affective psychiatric disorders than control subjects, and also a lower level of global functioning.