Dataset Information

Control charts for monitoring mood stability as a predictor of severe episodes in patients with bipolar disorder.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recurrent mood episodes and subsyndromal mood instability cause substantial disability in patients with bipolar disorder. Early identification of mood episodes enabling timely mood stabilization is an important clinical goal. This study investigates the ability of control chart methodology to predict manic and/or depressive episodes by applying Shewhart's control rules to weekly self-reported scores from mania and depression questionnaires.

Methods

Shewhart's control rules were applied to weekly self-reported scores from the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale (ASRM) and the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Report (QIDS) collected from 2001 to 2012 as part of the OXTEXT programme. Manic and depressive episodes were defined as an ASRM score ≥ 10 or a QIDS score ≥ 15, respectively. An episode-free run-in period of eight consecutive weeks without an episode of either type was used to calibrate control charts. Shewhart's rules were then applied to follow-up data. Their sensitivity and positive predictive value for predicting manic or depressive episodes within the next 4 weeks were calculated focusing on the first episode. Secondary analyses varying control chart type, length of episode-free run-in period, time frames to evaluate diagnostic accuracy, thresholds defining either manic or depressive episodes, and missing data methods were performed.

Results

Data from 146 participants (37% men) were included. The mean age was 43.4 (SD = 13.3) years. The median follow-up was 10 (IQR 5-40) weeks for mania and 10 (IQR 5-23) weeks for depression. A total of 53 (36%) participants had a manic episode and 67 (46%) had a depressive episode. For manic episodes, the sensitivity and positive predictive value of Shewhart's control rules were 30% (95% CI 19-45%) and 7% (95% CI 5-9%), and for depressive episodes, 33% (95% CI 22-46%) and 9% (95% CI 6-12%), respectively. Results from secondary analyses were similar to these.

Conclusions

Tele-monitoring with control rules has the potential to predict about one-third of manic or depressive episodes before they occur, at the cost of a high false positive rate. Given the severe consequences of manic and depressive episodes, this trade-off may be desirable.

SUBMITTER: Vazquez-Montes MDLA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6161980 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundBipolar disorder (BD) is characterized by intensive mood fluctuations. While hormones imbalance plays important role in the mood swings, it is unknown whether peripheral hormones profiles could differentiate the manic and depressive mood episodes in BD. In this study, we investigated the changes of various hormones and inflammatory markers across distinct mood episodes of BD in a large clinical study to provide mood episode-specific peripheral biomarkers for BD.MethodsA total of 8332 BD patients (n = 2679 depressive episode; n = 5653 manic episode) were included. All patients were in acute state of mood episodes and need hospitalization. A panel of blood tests were performed for levels of sex hormones (serum levels of testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone), stress hormones (adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol), and an inflammation marker (C-reactive protein, CRP). A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the discriminatory potential of the biomarkers for mood episodes.ResultsIn overall comparison between mood episodes, the BD patients expressed higher levels of testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and CRP (P < 0.001) and lower adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) level (P < 0.001) during manic episode. The episode-specific changes of testosterone, ACTH, and CRP levels remained between the two groups (P < 0.001) after correction for the confounding factors including age, sex, BMI, occupation, marital status, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, psychotic symptoms, and age at onset. Furthermore, we found a sex- and age-specific impact of combined biomarkers in mood episodes in male BD patients aged ≥ 45 years (AUC = 0.70, 95% CI, 0.634-0.747), not in females.ConclusionsWhile both hormone and inflammatory change is independently associated with mood episodes, we found that the combination of sex hormones, stress hormones and CRP could be more effective to differentiate the manic and depressive episode. The biological signatures of mood episodes in BD patients may be sex- and age-specific. Our findings not only provide mood episode-related biological markers, but also better support for targeted intervention in BD treatments.