More Kids With Bipolar Disorder?

Ivanhoe Newswire
Tuesday, September 4, 2007; 12:00 AM

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The number of visits to the doctor ending with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children has grown by 40 times in the past decade.

Are kids really more mentally unstable than they were in the past, or is something else at play?

Researchers who report the finding suggest it is probably a combination of factors, including previous under-diagnosis of the condition in kids, perhaps a current over-diagnosis, or most likely a combination of the two.

The study is based on data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, which tracks a week's worth of doctor visits and diagnoses, allowing researchers to extrapolate what would happen through the year. In 1994 to 1995, 25 out of every 100,000 visits for kids ages 19 and younger resulted in a bipolar diagnosis. By 2002 to 2003, that figure had risen to 1,003 out of every 100,000. Diagnosis rates for adults went up during the same period, doubling from about 905 per 100,000 visits to 1,679.

While it's hard to tell from the data whether the incidence and prevalence of bipolar disorder are really increasing, the study did shed new, and potentially disturbing, light on how kids are being treated for the condition. Specifically, prescriptions issued for kids were similar to those for adults, even though few studies have been conducted to identify safe and appropriate medications for use in children with the disorder.

Commenting on the study, National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D., reiterated it is too soon to say the drastic increase in bipolar diagnosis seen in this study truly indicates a drastic rise in the condition among kids. "These new results confirm what we are hearing increasingly from families who tell us about disabling, sometimes dangerous, psychiatric symptoms in their children," he was quoted as saying.

He reported the new information should remind us of "the need for research that validates the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and other disorders in children and the importance of developing treatments that are safe, effective, and feasible for use in primary care."

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SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, published online Sept. 3, 2007