Comparison of clinical and sociodemographic features of bipolar disorder patients with those of social anxiety disorder patients comorbid with bipolar disorder in Turkey

Objectives: To assess the impact of social anxiety disorder (SAD) comorbidity on the clinical features, illness severity, and response to mood stabilizers in bipolar disorder (BD) patients.

Methods: This retrospective study included bipolar patients that were treated at the Department of Psychiatry, Haseki Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey in 2015, and who provided their informed consents for participation in this study. The study was conducted by assessing patient files retrospectively. Two hundred bipolar patients were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition axis-I (SCID-I) in order to detect all possible comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. The sample was split according to the presence of SAD comorbidity and the groups were compared.

Results: The SAD comorbidity was detected in 17.5% (35/200) of the BD patients. The SAD comorbid bipolar patients were more educated, had earlier onset of BD, lower number of manic episodes, and more severe episodes. There was no difference between groups in terms of total number of episodes, hospitalization, suicidality, being psychotic, treatment response to lithium and anticonvulsants.

Conclusion: Social anxiety disorder comorbidity may be associated with more severe episodes and early onset of BD. However, SAD comorbidity may not be related to treatment response in bipolar patients.