Quality of life in youth with bipolar disorder and unaffected offspring of parents with bipolar disorder

- Health-related quality of life depicts the individuals' perception of their own health.
- HRQoL is worse in pediatric BD patients than in BD healthy offspring and controls.
- Euthymic BD patients had a poorer HRQoL perception than unaffected offspring and controls.
- Healthy offspring did not report poorer perceived HRQoL in comparison with healthy controls.
- Unaffected offspring might develop strategies to cope with their affected parent and preserve their functioning.

BackgroundThere have been few studies investigating quality of life (QoL) in pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) patients and none comparing it with that observed in unaffected offspring of parents with BD and healthy controls.MethodsThe self-report Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research version (YQoL-R) was administered in 26 pediatric BD patients, 17 unaffected offspring of parents with BD, and 24 individuals with no history of DSM-IV Axis I psychiatric disorders. All diagnoses were determined through interviews based on the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version.ResultsThere were statistical differences among the groups for all YQoL-R domains. Pairwise comparisons showed that perceived QoL was significantly worse in the BD group than in the unaffected offspring and healthy subjects, a difference that persisted even when only euthymic subjects were analyzed. There were no significant differences between the unaffected offspring and healthy subjects for any YQoL-R domain.LimitationsOur sample was small. There was no QoL report from subjects parents nor data about family environment or BD parents' mood state.ConclusionsThere is a need for studies to investigate in greater detail the relationship between QoL and psychological resilience, particularly in the unaffected offspring of parents with BD.