Attention Deficits of Euthymic Bipolar Patients in the Sustained Attention to Response Task

OBJECTIVES: Euthymic patients with bipolar disorder have been reported to show deficits in sustained attention. This study aimed to compare the attention capacities of euthymic bipolar patients with those of control subjects using the sustained attention to response task (SART) and to examine the differences in the performance of SART related to the type of the stimulus. METHODS: The four SART tasks were performed to measure attention capacities in 42 euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and 28 control subjects. Happy, neutral, fearful faces and digit '3' were used as target stimuli in happy, neutral, fear and digit task conditions, respectively. The severity of mood symptoms was assessed with 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depressive symptoms and Young Mania Rating Scale for manic symptoms. The efficiency estimate which reflects both the response accuracy and speed was used as the main outcome variable. RESULTS: Bipolar patients showed significantly lower correct response rate than control group in all task conditions. Efficiency estimates of the bipolar patient group were significantly lower than those of the control group in the SART using facial stimuli, but not in the digit task condition. There was no significant difference in task performances related to the emotional categories of facial stimuli. CONCLUSION: Bipolar patients showed deficits in sustained attention even in the euthymic state. The attention deficits shown in the euthymic bipolar patients may be prominent in a more complex task condition with stimuli such as facial stimuli.ope