Applying existing clinical staging models in a sample of Italian bipolar patients over a 10-years follow-up

Introduction Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a life-course illness with evidence of a progressive nature. Although different staging models have been proposed from a theoretical perspective,longitudinal studies are scarce. Objectives The aim of the present study was to apply four staging models in a sample of BD patients and to observe their progression in 10 years of retrospective evaluation. Methods In a naturalistic sample of 100 BD patients, a retrospective assessment of clinical stages across 10 years of observation at six time points (T0: 2010; T1: 2013; T2: 2015; T3: 2018; T4: 2019; T5:2020) was performed according to the BD staging models (Berk et al., 2007; Kapczinski et al., 2009; Kupka et al., 2012 and Duffy et al., 2014). Socio-demographic and clinical variables were collected and the staging progression across time was analyzed. Results A significant progressive staging worsening emerged over 10 years of BD observation for each examined model (p<0.001). Moreover, for all considered staging approaches, stage values were lower over the time points for BD II, lower number of lifetime episodes and hospitalizations (p<0.05). Finally, the stage increase was associated with a lower age at first elevated episode (p<0.05). Conclusions Present preliminary results confirm the relevance of illness onset and early intervention in BD, given their role in patients classified into worse clinical staging. There is an emerging need of a standardized universal staging model in order to better characterize BD patients, their treatment and their clinical course. Disclosure No significant relationships.