Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder

Abstract:10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_5203 (BD) is a complex clinical syndrome where patients alternate episodes of mania and depression with intervals of euthymia. In addition, BD has been recently shown to induce cognitive and functioning impairment that may worsen with cumulative episodes. Such new findings brought to the field the need of assessing a more general appraisal of patients about the course of their illness. The construct of “10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_6496” (QOL) has provided the field with a means to assess the suffering and subjective burden related to BD. In the present chapter, we will present new data on how QOL is changed by mood states and the extent to which QOL may serve as a psychometric construct related to comorbidities, cognition, functioning and the ability of the patient to be aware of his own illness. Overall, QOL seems to provide a useful tool to assess acute states of BD illness as well as the enduring changes related to the illness such as functional and cognitive decline.