Severe mood dysregulation, irritability, and the diagnostic boundaries of bipolar disorder in youths.

ABSTRACT: In recent years, increasing numbers of children have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In some cases, children with unstable mood clearly meet current diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, and in others, the diagnosis is unclear. Severe mood dysregulation is a syndrome defined to capture the symptomatology of children whose diagnostic status with respect to bipolar disorder is uncertain, that is, those who have severe, nonepisodic irritability and the hyperarousal symptoms characteristic of mania but who lack the well-demarcated periods of elevated or irritable mood characteristic of bipolar disorder. Levels of impairment are comparable between youths with bipolar disorder and those with severe mood dysregulation. An emerging literature compares children with severe mood dysregulat

SUBMITTER: Leibenluft E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3396206 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature