[A user-friendly scale for the short and long term outcome of bipolar disorder: the CGI-BP-M].

UNLABELLED

Bipolar disorder is a cyclic and polymorphic disease. Patients may show manic, hipomanic, depressive or mixed symptoms, and they may be in partial or complete remission. For this reason, the assessment of the course, severity and outcome of the disorder is very complex. Most of the available psychometric instruments have been designed for the assessment of acute episodes of specific polarity.

METHODS

We present the modified version of the Clinical Global Impression for Bipolar Disorder (CGI-BP-M) a condensed version of the CGI-BP, which is also an adaptation of the CGI for bipolar patients.

RESULTS

The CGI-BP-M takes only a few minutes to complete, and it has proved to be useful in the assessment of the short and long-term efficacy of several treatments such as olanzapine and quetiapine. Significant improvements in several subescales of the CGI-BP-M after treatment with these compounds are shown.

CONCLUSIONS

The CGI-BP-M, a user-friendly scale for the assessment of manic, hypomanic, depressive or mixed symptoms, and long-term outcome of bipolar disorder, is a useful tool for the assessment of the efficacy of several treatments.