Bipolar disorder and mania

Abstract

It has been emphasised elsewhere in this volume that depression is more frequent in MS patients than in the general population. The same goes for the prevalence of other psychiatric disorders and symptoms in the general population and in MS patients, and bipolar disorder (BD) is no exception, as has been repeatedly reported [1-3]. The BD prevalence rate estimated in MS patients in earlier reports is higher than that shown by more recent surveys (0.3 % to 32 % vs 0.3 % to 2.4 %) [1, 2; 4-7], the last values being supported by an estimate in a large population study [7]. The two to three times higher prevalence of BD in MS patients than in the general population which emerged from previous studies remains valid, as does the recently reported prevalence of BD in the general population of 0.24 % instead of the usually estimated 1 % [8].