Andrew J. Freeman

Quality of Life in Pediatric Bipolar Disorder

OBJECTIVE. Bipolar disorder is a common mood disorder associated with significant disability and impairment in quality of life in adults. Little research has examined the impact of the disorder on quality of life in children and adolescents. The current study examines the quality of life in children and adolescents with bipolar disorder compared with other physical and psychiatric illnesses. METHODS. This study included 529 youth and caregiver pairs who sought services at a community mental health center or an academic medical center. Diagnoses were based on semistructured interviews of caregivers and youths, and quality of life was determined by the parent-reported Revised Children Quality of Life Questioinnaire (KINDL) questionnaire and compared with published benchmarks for many medical illnesses. RESULTS. Mean age of the youths was 12.0 years, 57% were boys, 72% were black, 22% were white, and 17% had received bipolar disorder diagnoses. Youths with bipolar disorder had significantly lower quality-of-life scores than youths with asthma, atopic dermatitis, obesity, arthritis, oxygen dependence, heart surgery during infancy, depression, behavior disorders, and nonmood and nonbehavior psychiatric diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS. Youths with bipolar disorder reported lower quality of life than other youths encountered in pediatric practice. Pediatricians should attend not only to the childs mood symptoms but also to the overall impairment of the disorder.

Suicidality in pediatric bipolar disorder: predictor or outcome of family processes and mixed mood presentation?

OBJECTIVE Pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) involves a potent combination of mood dysregulation and interpersonal processes, placing these youth at significantly greater risk of suicide. We examined the relationship between suicidal behavior, mood symptom presentation, family functioning, and quality of life (QoL) in youth with PBD. METHODS Participants were 138 youths aged 5-18 years presenting to outpatient clinics with DSM-IV diagnoses of bipolar I disorder (n=27), bipolar II disorder (n=18), cyclothymic disorder (n=48), and bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (n=45). RESULTS Twenty PBD patients had lifetime suicide attempts, 63 had past or current suicide ideation, and 55 were free of suicide ideation and attempts. Attempters were older than nonattempters. Suicide ideation and attempts were linked to higher depressive symptoms, and rates were even higher in youths meeting criteria for the mixed specifier proposed for DSM-5. Both suicide ideation and attempts were associated with lower youth QoL and poorer family functioning. Parent effects (with suicidality treated as outcome) and child effects (where suicide was the predictor of poor family functioning) showed equally strong evidence in regression models, even after adjusting for demographics. CONCLUSIONS These findings underscore the strong association between mixed features and suicidality in PBD, as well as the association between QoL, family functioning, and suicidality. It is possible that youths are not just a passive recipient of family processes, and their illness may play an active role in disrupting family functioning. Replication with longitudinal data and qualitative methods should investigate both child and parent effect models.

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in a Community Mental Health Clinic: Prevalence, Comorbidity and Correlates

OBJECTIVE The revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (DSM-5) added a new diagnosis of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) to depressive disorders. This study examines the prevalence, comorbidity, and correlates of the new disorder, with a particular focus on its overlap with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), with which DMDD shares core symptoms. METHODS Data were obtained from 597 youth 6-18 years of age who participated in a systematic assessment of symptoms offered to all intakes at a community mental health center (sample accrued from July 2003 to March 2008). Assessment included diagnostic, symptomatic, and functional measures. DMDD was diagnosed using a post-hoc definition from item-level ratings on the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children that closely matches the DSM-5 definition. Caregivers rated youth on the Child Behavior Checklist. RESULTS Approximately 31% of youth met the operational definition of DMDD, and 40% had Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) diagnoses of ODD. Youth with DMDD almost always had ODD (odds ratio [OR] = 53.84) and displayed higher rates of comorbidity with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder than youth without DMDD. Caregivers of youth with DMDD reported more symptoms of aggressive behavior, rule-breaking, social problems, anxiety/depression, attention problems, and thought problems than all other youth without DMDD. Compared with youth with ODD, youth with DMDD were not significantly different in terms of categorical or dimensional approaches to comorbidity and impairment. CONCLUSIONS The new diagnosis of DMDD might be common in community mental health clinics. Youth with DMDD displayed more severe symptoms and poorer functioning than youth without DMDD. However, DMDD almost entirely overlaps with ODD and youth with DMDD were not significantly different than youth with ODD. These findings raise concerns about the potentially confusing effects of using DMDD in clinical settings, particularly given that DSM-5 groups DMDD with depressive disorders, but ODD remains a disruptive behavior disorder, potentially changing the decision-making framework that clinicians use to select treatments.

Is caregiver-adolescent disagreement due to differences in thresholds for reporting manic symptoms?

INTRODUCTION Cross-informant disagreement is common and results in different interpretations of a youths behavior. Theoretical explanations for discrepancies typically rely on scale level analyses. This article explores whether caregivers and adolescents differ in when they notice and report symptoms of youth mania depending on the severity of overall manic disturbance. METHOD Participants were 459 adolescent-caregiver pairs recruited at either a community mental health center or an academic medical center. Adolescents were most likely to have a primary diagnosis of unipolar depression (37%) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder/disruptive behavior disorder (36%). Nineteen percent of adolescents received a bipolar spectrum disorder diagnosis (4% bipolar I and 15% bipolar II, cyclothymia, or bipolar not otherwise specificed). Caregivers were primarily biological mothers (74%) or grandparents (8%). Adolescents and caregivers independently completed the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) about the adolescent. RESULTS Item response theory analyses of the entire sample indicated that in general, both caregivers and adolescents reserved endorsement of mania symptoms for the most severely ill half of participants. Comparisons of caregiver and adolescent report of symptoms on the MDQ indicated two significant differences. Caregivers were more likely to report irritability at significantly lower severity of mania than adolescents. Adolescents endorsed only increased energy or hyperactivity at lower severities than caregivers. CONCLUSIONS Adolescents and caregivers will have different concerns and might report different symptoms consistent with whom the symptom impacts first. Caregivers are more likely to report behaviors such as irritability, whereas adolescents are more likely to report subjective feelings such as feeling more energetic or more hyperactive.

Social Desirability and Partner Agreement of Men’s Reporting of Intimate Partner Violence in Substance Abuse Treatment Settings

Estimates indicate that intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs in approximately 30% of relationships and up to 85% of the relationships of men in substance abuse treatment. However, partners consistently display poor agreement in reporting the presence of IPV. Social desirability is frequently offered as the primary reason for under-reporting of IPV by perpetrators. The goal of the current study was to explicitly test the social desirability hypothesis using both partners’ reports of negotiation, psychological aggression, physical aggression, sexual aggression, and injuries in a substance abuse treatment sample. A total of 54 males and their female partners were recruited from a residential adult substance use treatment facility. Consistent with prior literature, partners displayed poor agreement about the presence of different types of IPV. The male partner’s social desirability was not associated with his reporting of male-to-female physical aggression, psychological aggression, or injuries. Men who engaged in higher levels of self-deceptive enhancement and lower levels of impression management were more likely to under-report male-to-female sexual coercion. Overall, the findings question the generalized importance of social desirability in IPV reporting in substance abuse treatment populations.

Portability of a screener for pediatric bipolar disorder to a diverse setting.

Robust screening measures that perform well in different populations could help improve the accuracy of diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder. Changes in sampling could influence the performance of items and potentially influence total scores enough to alter the predictive utility of scores. Additionally, creating a brief version of a measure by extracting items from a longer scale might cause differential functioning due to context effects. The authors of current study examined both sampling and context effects of a brief measure of pediatric mania. Caregivers of 813 youths completed the parent-reported version of the General Behavior Inventory (PGBI) at an academic medical center sample enriched for mood disorders. Caregivers of 481 youths completed the PGBI at a community mental health center. Caregivers of 799 youths completed 10 items extracted from the PGBI at a community setting. Caregivers of 159 youths completed both versions of the PGBI and a semistructured diagnostic interview. Differential item functioning indicated that across samples some items functioned differently; however, total observed scores were similar across all levels of mania. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that the 10 extracted items discriminated bipolar disorder from nonbipolar behavior as well as when the items were embedded within the full measure. Findings suggest that the extracted items perform similarly to the embedded items in the community setting. Measurement properties appear sufficiently robust across settings to support clinical applications.

Impact of Irritability and Impulsive Aggressive Behavior on Impairment and Social Functioning in Youth with Cyclothymic Disorder

OBJECTIVE Research on adults with cyclothymic disorder (CycD) suggests that irritability and impulsive aggression (IA) are highly prevalent among this population. Less is known about whether these behaviors might also distinguish youth with CycD from youth without CycD. Additionally, little is known about how irritability and IA relate to one another, and whether they are associated with different outcomes. This study aimed to compare irritability and IA across diagnostic subtypes to determine whether CycD is uniquely associated with these behaviors, and to assess how irritability and IA relate to youth social and general functioning. METHODS Participants (n = 459), 11-18 years of age, were recruited from an urban community mental health center and an academic outpatient clinic; 25 had a diagnosis of CycD. Youth and caregivers completed measures of IA and irritability. Youth and caregivers also completed an assessment of youth friendship quality. Clinical interviewers assessed youth social, family, and school functioning. RESULTS Youth with CycD had higher scores on measures of irritability and IA than youth with nonbipolar disorders, but scores were not different from other youth with bipolar spectrum disorders. Measures of irritability and IA were correlated, but represented distinct constructs. Regression analyses indicated that irritability was related to friendship quality (p < 0.005). Both IA and irritability were related to social impairment (ps < 0.05-0.0005) and Child Global Assessment Scale (C-GAS) scores (ps = 0.05-0.005). CycD diagnosis was associated with poorer caregiver-rated friendship quality and social functioning (ps < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS We found that irritability and aggression were more severe among youth with CycD than among youth with nonbipolar diagnoses, but did not differ across bipolar disorder subtypes. Among youth seeking treatment for mental illness, irritability and IA are prevalent and nonspecific. Irritability and IA were uniquely related to our outcomes of social and general functioning, suggesting that it is worthwhile to assess each separately, in order to broaden our understanding of the characteristics and correlates of each.

The Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire’s inconsistency scales identify invalid profiles through internal statistics and external correlates.

Inconsistency scales represent a promising method for separating valid and invalid personality profiles. In a sample of 1,258 participants in the waiting room of the emergency department of an urban university hospital, we examined whether data from participants with profiles flagged as invalid (n = 132) using the Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN) or True Response Inconsistency (TRIN) scales of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire’s brief form (MPQ-BF) differed from those that did not exceed any validity cutoffs (n = 1,026). Invalid profiles’ scores on many scales were less internally consistent and had less variability than those from valid profiles, especially for random and acquiescent response styles. Scores on MPQ-BF primary trait scales from profiles featuring random responses appeared more psychologically maladjusted than those on valid profiles. Compared to primary trait scores on valid profiles, acquiescent profiles generally had higher scores, and counteracquiescent profiles had lower scores. The higher order component structure of invalid profiles was less consistent with published MPQ-BF component structures than that of valid profiles, though negative emotionality was generally reasonably well-preserved. Scores on primary traits associated with negative emotionality generally had larger correlations with demographic criteria for valid profiles than invalid profiles. These results argue that inconsistency scales meaningfully identify invalid profiles in normal-range personality assessment.