The study aimed to investigate the relationship between actual stress and depressive and manic mood in bipolar patients. It further investigated whether perceived stress and irritability mediate...Show moreThe study aimed to investigate the relationship between actual stress and depressive and manic mood in bipolar patients. It further investigated whether perceived stress and irritability mediate these relationships in line with Beck’s Cognitive Behavioral Model. Fifty-nine participants diagnosed with bipolar disorder engaged in the study voluntarily. All participants were newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Dutch, and started a specialized treatment for the first time. As part of the BINCO study, participants filled out questionnaires about their symptom severity regarding depressive and manic mood, their actual and perceived stress, and their irritability. Correlational and mediational analyses (using PROCESSv4) did not show significant mediating effects of perceived stress and irritability. Only significant positive correlations were found between actual stress and manic mood, perceived stress and depressive mood, and perceived stress and irritability. Consequently, perceived stress and irritability do not seem to mediate the relationship between actual stress and depressive and manic mood in bipolar patients. The findings were not in line with Beck’s Cognitive Behavioral Model. Nevertheless, a higher perceived stress seems to be related to an increased symptom severity of depressive mood and a higher actual stress seems to be related to manic symptom severity.Show less
Intellectual deficits have been known as a core feature of bipolar disorder for decades and are hypothesized to be responsible for the unfavorable psychosocial outcome and high unemployment rates....Show moreIntellectual deficits have been known as a core feature of bipolar disorder for decades and are hypothesized to be responsible for the unfavorable psychosocial outcome and high unemployment rates. Those alterations seem to be permanent and are present not only during active- but also during euthymic phases. The focus of this study was on investigating a possible link between mood symptoms, assessed through the clinician-rated questionnaire YMRS and the self-rated QIDS, and the IQ together with cognitive abilities in four different domains. Measured was the performance of 50 recently diagnosed patients participating in the BINCO-study. Furthermore, the focus was on observing differences in scoring between different symptomatic states and the two types of disorder. The impact of confounders, including the intake of antipsychotic medication, benzodiazepines, and the educational level, were considered. While no significant association between depressive symptoms and the subscale-derived IQ could be detected, a quadratic relation was found between manic symptoms and SDIQ score, pointing towards lower scoring in patients with subclinical symptoms and higher performance in patients with mild to moderate symptoms. The QIDS-score significantly impacted the performance in the sub-scale „information”, which provides the verbal comprehension index. The YMRS- score again showed a curvilinear association with the same subtest. The intake of antipsychotic medication seemed to show the greatest confounding effect on the dependent variable. Further research is needed to elucidate the effect of manic symptoms on IQ and verbal comprehension, as well as the role of antipsychotic medication. Also, larger sample sizes would determine the actual impact of each mood phase on the IQ.Show less
Two percent of the population in the Netherlands suffers from a bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder comes with a lot of comorbid mental and physical pathologies ranging from cardiovascular diseases,...Show moreTwo percent of the population in the Netherlands suffers from a bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder comes with a lot of comorbid mental and physical pathologies ranging from cardiovascular diseases, anxieties, to metabolic syndrome. Diet plays a role in the course of these comorbidities and bipolar disorder. Some research has been done into the effects of diet on mood but a lot of it is focused on healthy populations and people with a unipolar depression. This thesis will focus on the association between depression and mania and diet in people with bipolar disorder. In the current study diet was assessed with the food frequency questionnaire, in a sample of 34 recently diagnosed bipolar patients. Five foodgroups have been formed consisting of sweet rich foods, starch rich foods, fibre rich foods, protein rich foods and dairy products. There was only a small negative association found between starch rich foods and manic symptoms. A possible explanation might be that people with bipolar disorder in a manic phase are too busy and too distracted to eat. Shortcomings of this research are a small sample size, a very low representation of mania among the sample, only using baseline data and a limited use of the information assessed with the food frequency questionnaire. More future randomized control trials and cohort studies should be performed to get a better view on associations and better understanding them.Show less
