BIPOLAR DISORDER IN ENUGU, SOUTH EAST NIGERIA: Demographic and diagnostic characteristics of patients

Background and objectives: Bipolar disorder is a severe mental disorder that has been widely studied in developed countries. Very few studies of this disorder exist in developing countries. The objective of this study was to describe the demographic and diagnostic characteristics of bipolar patients in Enugu, South East Nigeria. Subjects and method: The design of the study was cross-sectional. The study was carried out in Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Enugu (FNPHE) and in a Private Psychiatrist’s Office (PPO) in Enugu, South East Nigeria. 94 patients were recruited to take part in the study. 49 patients were included from the FNPHE and 45 patients from the PPO. The two groups of patients differed only in terms of mood at study entry. Patients were included in the study if they had been diagnosed bipolar, if they were attending the FNPHE as outpatients, inpatients or were receiving emergency treatment or if they were attending the PPO for follow-up and if they had given their consent to participate in the study. The patients responded to a structured questionnaire used to elicit demographic and diagnostic characteristics. This questionnaire was administered by one of the authors (EJ). Each patient was also interviewed with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) for Bipolar Disorder Studies version 5.0.0. This MINI assessment was done by (MO). All the data were collected in a specially prepared data collection form. The demographic factors reported on included gender, age, marital status, level of education and employment status. The reported diagnostic and illness characteristics included age at onset of illness, mood at study entry and mood at onset of illness. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 11.5. Frequencies were run on demographic characteristics while means and standard deviations were calculated for continuous variables. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the FNPHE. Results: The majority of the sample (68.1%) met the criteria for bipolar I disorder. The mean age of patients was 33.17 (SD = 11.87) years and mean duration of bipolar illness was 9.6 (SD = 8.9) years. Among the 94 patients, 58.8% were males. The mean age at onset of illness for the whole group was 22.9 (SD = 8.3) years. Conclusion: The current report is probably the first on bipolar disorder in this part of Africa. It will serve as an impetus to conduct more research on the topic especially since some important findings are similar to what had been recorded from both developed and developing countrie