Use of a structured diagnostic interview to identify bipolar disorder in adolescent inpatients: frequency and manifestations of the disorder

The authors interviewed 17 adolescent inpatients and their mothers with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children and Adolescents, Epidemiological Version (K-SADS-E), a semistructured interview that generates RDC and DSM-III diagnoses for major affective disorders and nonaffective psychoses and DSM-III diagnoses for dysthymic, cyclothymic, and other selected disorders. Five of the patients (29%) satisfied DSM-III criteria for bipolar disorder or atypical bipolar (bipolar II) disorder, although these diagnoses had not been identified in the hospital charts. These data support previous findings that bipolar disorder occurs moderately frequently in adolescent inpatients, although it is often unrecognized. Moreover, the disorder can be readily identified with structured diagnostic methods.