Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate psychosocial functioning of euthymic Bipolar Disorder Type-II (BD-II) patients and the association between psychosocial functioning with cognitive functions and subclinical symptoms. The hypothesis was BD-II patients would have low level of psychosocial functioning comparing to healthy subjects and psychosocial functioning would be associated independently with cognitive dysfunction and subclinical symptoms.
Method: Thirthy-three subjects who met criteria for BD-II according to Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and thirty-five healthy subjects were included. Clinical symptoms were assessed by Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS); Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS); psychosocial functioning was assessed by Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST). Neurocognitive assessment battery was consisted of WAIS-R general information subtest; Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) perseverative errors, nonperseverative errors and category completed subtests; Trail Making Test-B (TMT-B); Stroop TBAG form; Trail Making Test-A(TMT-A) Auditory Consonant Trigrams (ACT) ACT; Wechsler Memory Scale Revised (WMS-R).
Results: Clinical symptoms assessed by HDRS, HARS scores; psychosocial functioning scores assessed by FAST; neurocognitive functions assessed by WCST category completed and, TMT-B, Stroop test, TMT-A, ACT, and WMS-R scores were significantly different between the two groups. FAST scores were associated with ACT scores in BB-II group.
Conclusion: BB-II patients had cognitive dysfunctions and low level of psychosocial functioning even in their euthymic states. Working memory dysfunction was independently associated with psychosocial functioning of euthymic BB-II patients.