Social Support and Its Relevance to Relapse Among Patients With Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder (BD) affects and is affected by the family atmosphere. About socialsupport and bipolar disorder, supporting partnerships tend to have beneficial impact onavoiding a relapse and also improving medication commitment and strengthening theindividual's functionality. So, this study aims to assess the relationship between socialsupport and its relevance to relapse among patients with bipolar disorder. Method: Adescriptive correlational research design was utilized with a sample of 200 patientsdiagnosed with bipolar disorder attending the Inpatient and the Out-patient Clinics ofPsychiatric Department of Mansoura University Hospital. Data was collected using twotools: tool to assess socio-demographic characteristics and clinical data and theMultidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) tool. Results revealed thatmore than one third of the studied sample (36%) was less than 30 years, more than half(71%) were males, arround half of the studied sample (47.5%) were single , according tothe level of education (13%) were illiterate and (21%) read and write(primary/preparatory), more than half of the studied sample (54%) had previouspsychiatric hospital admission from 5 to more than 10 times. Also half of the studiedsample had low social support and patients who had low and moderate social supportadmitted to the hospital from 5 to 10 times and more. Conclusion: It can be concludedfrom the present study that low social support increases the risk for relapse among patientswith bipolar disorder.