BACKGROUND There has been considerable research into the impact of chronic illness on health-related quality of life. However, few studies have assessed the impact of different chronic conditions on general quality of life (QOL). The objective of this paper was to compare general (rather than health-related) QOL and affective well-being in middle aged and older people across eight chronic illne...

Forty-eight of the 50 living adult offspring of 16 bipolar patients were interviewed. Data was available on the 2 other offspring, who had previously suicided. One half of the offspring met criteria for psychiatric illness, the majority of which was either primary affective or other affective disorder. The mean age of onset of illness was middle to late adolescence, earlier than that generally ...

in euthymic patients with primary affective illness. Science 208:200. Sitaram N, Gillin JC, Bunney WE Jr (1984): Cholinergic and catecholaminergic receptor sensitivity in affective illness: Strategy and theory. In Post RM, Ballenger JC (eds), Neurobiology of Mood Disorders. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, p 629. Spitzer RL, Endicott J, Robins E (1978): Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) for a Se...

OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of prenatal exposure to severe life events on risk of affective disorders in the offspring. METHODS In a cohort of 1.1 million Danish births from May 1978 until December 1997, mothers were considered exposed if one (or more) of their close relatives died or was diagnosed with serious illness up to 6 months before conception or during pregnancy. Offspring were f...

Background: Whether marriage can cure mental illness has been a topic of discussion since many years. Marriage can impact on either way on a person’s life. Often, mental health professionals are faced with having to give advice regarding the marriage of a person suffering from bipolar disorder. There is a belief in the community that marriage is a solution to all the mental illness. Aim: To kno...

BACKGROUND The public health, public safety and clinical implications of violent events among adults with mental illness are significant; however, the causes and consequences of violence and victimization among adults with mental illness are complex and not well understood, which limits the effectiveness of clinical interventions and risk management strategies. This study examined interrelation...

BACKGROUND Persistent neuropsychological impairments have been reported in the euthymic phase of bipolar affective disorder. However, the findings have been confounded by multiple episodes, chronic illness and residual mood symptoms. AIMS To assess sustained attention and executive functioning in euthymic young people with bipolar I disorder who had had no more than two affective episodes. ...

work and research in psychiatry has proceeded under the assumption that schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder (or the corresponding earlier terms, such as dementia praecox and manic–depressive illness) are distinct entities with separate underlying disease processes and treatments. This so-called ‘Kraepelinian dichotomy’ has pervaded Western psychiatry since Emil Kraepelin (1919) ‘crysta...