A Study of Biological Rhythm Disturbances in Polish Remitted Bipolar Patients using the BRIAN, CSM, and SWPAQ Scales

Abstract

Background/Aims: The Biological Rhythms Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (BRIAN) is a novel tool allowing for a complex assessment of biological rhythms. We compared patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy control subjects (HC) using the Polish version of the BRIAN scale. Method: Fifty-four remitted BD patients (17 males and 37 females aged 52 ± 13 years) and 54 healthy control subjects (25 males and 29 females aged 42 ± 14 years) were studied. In addition to the BRIAN scale, the Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) and the Sleep-Wake Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SWPAQ) were employed. Results: The Polish version of the BRIAN scale displayed high feasibility and consistency, showing that the patients had greater biological rhythm disturbances than the controls. After regression analysis, significant differences were obtained for the BRIAN subscales activity and predominant chronotype, and for the SWPAQ items quality of night-time sleep and ability to stay awake. We obtained positive correlations between higher BRIAN scores and morningness and eveningness, but the correlations with vigilance and the ability to stay awake (on the SWPAQ) were negative. Conclusions: Using the BRIAN scale, we confirmed the greater disturbances of biological rhythm in Polish remitted bipolar patients, compared with healthy controls. The differences between these 2 groups in sleep-awake patterns were also demonstrated by the SWPAQ scores. In contrast to other studies, we were unable to confirm an evening chronotype as a discriminating factor between remitted bipolar patients and healthy subjects. This can be explained by the older age and the use of lithium by a significant proportion of the patients.

Clinical evaluation of biological rhythm domains in patients with major depression

“…Additionally, previous studies have considered disruptions of biological rhythm as a single symptom, or were conducted only in patients with bipolar disorder. 14,20,21,28,29 Only one recent study evaluated the effect of specific biological rhythm domains on unipolar depression, finding significant disruption in all biological rhythm domains (sleep, activity, social, and eating) and BRIAN-Total score both in patients with MDD and in those with bipolar disorder, compared to healthy controls. 21 However, this study was population-based, only included young adults (age 18-24 years), and did not take into consideration drug use or other confounders.…”

Similarities of Aspects of Biological Rhythms between Major Depression and Bipolar II Disorder Compared to Bipolar I Disorder: A Finding from the Early-Onset Mood Disorder Cohort

“…However, some earlier studies have weaknesses, such as only comparing the BD group and control group [20,37], or only comparing the BD group to those with depressive disorders [31,32]. In addition, only disturbances of biological rhythms according to mood were identified in subjects with BD [30,35,38]. The strength of the present study is that it was designed to analyze BD I and BD II and to compare the biological characteristics of the disease groups in more detail.…”

Chronotypes and circadian rest–activity rhythms in bipolar disorders: a meta‐analysis of self‐ and observer rating scales

“…After deduplication, this was reduced to 2071 articles and then, following review of titles and abstracts, to 61 articles. Overall, 30 publications met eligibility criteria for the qualitative synthesis and pooled analyses 26,45‐73 …”