Substance Misuse Trajectories and Risk of Relapse in the Early Course of Bipolar Disorder

Substance misuse is highly prevalent in bipolar disorder even in the early illness phases. However, the trajectories of misuse of different substances after treatment initiation is not well-studied. Also, knowledge on how substance misuse trajectories influence the early course of bipolar disorder i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychiatry 2021-05, Vol.12, p.656912-656912
Main Authors: Lagerberg, Trine Vik, Icick, Romain, Aminoff, Sofie Ragnhild, Nerhus, Mari, Barrett, Elizabeth Ann, Bjella, Thomas Doug, Olsen, Stine Holmstul, Høegh, Margrethe Collier, Melle, Ingrid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
alcohol misuse
bipolar disorder
cannabis misuse
longitudinal
Psychiatry
relapse
substance use disorders
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Summary:Substance misuse is highly prevalent in bipolar disorder even in the early illness phases. However, the trajectories of misuse of different substances after treatment initiation is not well-studied. Also, knowledge on how substance misuse trajectories influence the early course of bipolar disorder is limited. We recruited 220 individuals in first treatment of bipolar disorder of which 112 participated in a 1-year follow-up study at the NORMENT center in Oslo, Norway. Misuse was defined as having scores above cut-off for harmful use on the Alcohol or Drug Use Disorders Identification Tests (AUDIT or DUDIT). We investigated rates of stopping and continuing misuse of alcohol, cannabis and other illicit substances and daily nicotine use over the follow-up period, and whether such misuse trajectories predicted the risk for affective relapse. The prevalence of cannabis misuse was reduced from 29 to 15% and alcohol misuse was reduced from 39 to 21% during follow-up. Continuing alcohol misuse significantly and independently predicted affective relapse, whereas there was no difference in relapse risk between individuals stopping alcohol misuse and never misusing alcohol. Cannabis misuse trajectories did not significantly predict relapse risk although we cannot exclude interactions with alcohol misuse. In conclusion, substance misuse decreased in the early phase of bipolar disorder treatment but should be further reduced with interventions specifically addressing substance misuse. Stopping alcohol misuse is likely to yield substantial benefit on the clinical course of bipolar disorder.
ISSN:1664-0640
1664-0640
DOI:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.656912