Symptoms of mania and anxiety do not contribute to suicidal ideation or behavior in the presence of bipolar depression
By: Jane E. Persons, Paul Lodder, William H. Coryell, John I. Nurnberger, and Jess G. Fiedorowicz
Bipolar Disorder (BD) is characterized by depression and manic/hypomanic symptoms, either on their own or in combination. While the depressive symptoms of BD are often associated with heightened suicide risk, there is a lack of research on whether specific combinations of BD symptoms contribute to suicide risk in patients experiencing a depressive episode of BD. To address this, we used data collected from the National Network of Depression Centers Mood Outcomes Program, we measured symptoms of anxiety, depression, and mania as well as suicide risk in a cohort of 626 patients experiencing a depressive episode of BD. We found no increase in suicidal thoughts or behaviours that could to attributable to manic and anxiety symptom clusters in these patients. We found that a small amount (4%) of suicide risk could be linked to depressive symptoms. More research is needed using bigger samples of patients to explore this further.