@article{ref1,
title="The impact of unrecognized bipolar disorders for patients treated for depression with antidepressants in the fee-for-services California Medicaid (Medi-Cal) program",
journal="Journal of affective disorders",
year="2004",
author="Shi, Lizheng and Thiebaud, Patrick and McCombs, Jeffrey S.",
volume="82",
number="3",
pages="373-383",
abstract="BACKGROUND: This study compares hospital use, suicide risk and health care costs of antidepressant patients with recognized bipolar disorders (recognized-BP) and unrecognized bipolar disorders (unrecognized-BP) with non-bipolar (non-BP) patients. METHODS: Data from the California Medicaid (Medi-Cal) program were used to identify 25,460 adults with a new episode of antidepressant therapy. Recognized-BP patients received either a bipolar (BP) diagnosis or a mood stabilizer (MS) on or before the initiation of antidepressant therapy. Unrecognized-BP patients received a BP diagnosis or MS therapy after antidepressant initiation. Non-BP patients had no BP diagnosis and no MS use. Multivariate models were used to estimate marginal risks and costs across groups. RESULTS: Recognized-BP and unrecognized-BP represented 14.9% and 6.2% of all antidepressant users, respectively. Less than half of recognized-BP patients used a MS medication in conjunction with their antidepressant. Unrecognized-BP patients were nearly four times more likely to attempt suicide and 50% more likely to be hospitalized than non-BP patients. Recognized-BP patients were at lower risk for attempted suicide and hospitalization relative to unrecognized-BP patients. Unrecognized-BP patients experienced higher 1-year total costs relative to non-BP patients (USD 995, p<0.01) and recognized-BP patients (USD 682, p<0.05). LIMITATIONS: Clinically relevant medical records data were not available making the classification of patients as unrecognized-BP, recognized-BP and non-BP imprecise. CONCLUSIONS: Unrecognized-BP is both common and costly. More than half of all recognized-BP patients do not use an MS at the time they initiated antidepressant therapy. More effort is needed to provide early and correct diagnosis and effectively treat both recognized-BP and unrecognized-BP patients.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0165-0327",
doi="10.1016/j.jad.2004.03.009",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2004.03.009"
}