Executive Functions in Patients with Bipolar I Disorder in Recovery Phase: A Case-Control Study

Background and Executive functions include cognitive skills responsible for the design, initiation and sequencing of complex behaviors. Impairment in these functions is obvious in acute phase of bipolar disorder but available resources demonstrate this impairment as a major problem in bipolar patients. This research was conducted to compare executivefunctions and possibility of having frontallobe damage among bipolar I patients in their recovery phase and people without this disorder. This cross-sectional study included all the patients suffering from bipolar I disorder, attending Ibn-e-Sina Hospital in Mashhad during July to December 2011. Thirty patients diagnosed with bipolar I disorder were chosen according to DSM-IV-TR and psychologist's identification criteria. The control group included 30 ordinary people who did not have any psychological background. To collect the data the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Young Mania Rating Scale, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test were applied. The data was analyzed using independent T and U-Mann Whitney tests in SPSS. There was a significant difference among control and case groups in all indices of Wisconsin's test (total error, perseveration error, number of categories) (P<0.05). Executive functions of bipolar patients showed a significant difference in recovery phase compared to those of the control group. According to suitability of Wisconsin test for evaluating functions of frontallobes and significant results among these two groups, there is a high possibility of frontallobe damage in patients with bipolar disorder.