2021, Vol. 3, Issue 1, Part G

Background: Bipolar disorder is a life-threatening and complex condition leading to cognitive and personality impairment, imparting difficult short and long-term management, and affects approximately 1% of the population globally

Aims: The present trial was carried out to assess the clinical features of subjects with comorbid alcohol use with bipolar disorder and to assess the cognitive functions and personality traits in these subjects.

Materials and Methods: The subjects were screened and assessed for 3 months to assess the presence of bipolar disorder as per ICD 10 criteria using SCAN and were divided into controls and cases (n=40). After assessing subjects on various evaluation tools, the data were subjected to the statistical evaluation for both, case and controls, using t-test, and SPSS version 21.0, and a value of p< 0.05 was used as the level of significance.

Results: The results showed that personality traits of openness to experience and neuroticism were seen more in subjects having bipolar disorder with comorbid use of alcohol than in subjects with Bipolar disorder only (p ˂0.001). In subjects with Bipolar disorder and comorbid alcohol use, they took a long time to complete DSST compared to the subjects with bipolar disorder alone, and this difference was statistically significant (p ˂0.001). FAB scores and Stroop effect scores were higher significantly in the subjects with Bipolar disorder and comorbid alcohol use (p ˂0.001 for both FAB and Stroop test).

Conclusion: The present study concludes that comorbid intake of alcohol further complicates the complex life-threatening bipolar disorder diagnosis and management. Also, in subjects with high scores of openness to experience and neuroticism, there is more probability of developing comorbid alcohol intake tendencies and related disorder development.