Unipolar and Bipolar Depressive Illness

Status of electroconvulsive therapy: Review of the outcome literature.

“…These findings gain support from the results of Mendels (196Sa,196Sb,196Sc), Rose (1963), and Carney, Roth, and Garside (196S). Abrams and Taylor (1974) found no difference in the response of unipolar and bipolar endogenous depressives to ECT when outcome was assessed using depressive rating scale scores. Gurney et al (1970) found a more positive prognosis for patients suffering from affective disorders in which depression rather than anxiety was the predominant affect.…”

The Role of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) in Bipolar Disorder: Effectiveness in 522 Patients with Bipolar Depression, Mixed-state, Mania and Catatonic Features

“…In another report [ 38 ] unipolar patients showed response rates higher than BP patients, using measures of subjective evaluation. On the other hand, other Authors [ 39 , 40 , 41 ] did not show a different outcome in MDD and bipolar depression. In all these studies the rate of manic switch was not increased in BD depressive patients in comparison with MDD.…”

Hope and resilience among patients affected by unipolar and bipolar depression

“…These evidences may add to the international debate regarding the characterization of bipolar vs. unipolar depression as similar or different syndromes (Cuellar et al, 2005). Already in the 80s Abrams and Taylor (1980) argued that unipolar and bipolar depression may differ in their onset and longitudinal outcome: recent findings clarified that different neurobiological bases underpin these different forms of depression alongside different course of illness and clinical severity that may be more complex and higher in bipolar disorder (Brockington et al, 1982; Cuellar et al, 2005). Beyond the higher levels of depression detected among bipolar patients, higher rates of anxiety and suicidality might be explained with the evidence that bipolar disorder, in any mood episode, shows higher comorbidity with anxiety and high levels of anxiety may lead to a clinical diagnosis of mixed depression (Goldberg & Fawcett, 2012; Kim et al, 2016) Also, in both depressive forms, unipolar as well as bipolar, anxiety affects the illness outcome and makes suicidal thoughts, and completed suicide more likely (Goldberg & Fawcett, 2012).…”