Indirect measurement of dysfunctional attitudes in bipolar affective disorder.
OBJECTIVE
The present study uses an indirect measure to explore whether dysfunctional attitudes are characteristic of all phases of bipolar disorder. Previous studies with bipolar patients using indirect measurements have uncovered depression-like responses that were otherwise undetected.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study design was adopted to explore the presence of dysfunctional attitudes within each phase of the illness.


METHODS
Manic patients, depressed bipolar patients, remitted bipolar patients, and healthy controls were compared on a sentence stem completion task designed to implicitly assess dysfunctional attitudes.


RESULTS
The manic, depressed, and remitted patients all exceeded the controls on implicit measures of dysfunctional attitudes.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that all phases of bipolar disorder are associated with depressogenic dysfunctional attitudes.
Thomas
Justin
J
Department of Natural Science and Public Health, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Justin.thomas@zu.ac.ae
Bentall
Richard P
RP
Knowles
Rebecca
R
Tai
Sara
S
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001290:Attitude; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011932:Reading; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis