Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11500

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Publication type: Journal Article

Tanne JH.
Number of bipolar disorder diagnoses leaps among US young people
BMJ 2007 Sep 15; 335:(7619):535
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/335/7619/535-a?etoc

Abstract:

The number of US people aged under 20 years who received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003, a new study says. It also found that the number of diagnoses among adults almost doubled in the same period.

The study reported that between 1994 and 2003 the number of visits to US doctors in which young people were given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or received treatment increased from 25 in every 100 000 people in the population to 1003 per 100 000 (Archives of General Psychiatry 2007;64:1032-9). The number of diagnoses among adults aged over 20 rose from 905 to 1679 per 100 000.

The authors wrote, “Either bipolar disorder was historically underdiagnosed in children and adolescents and . . . the problem has now been rectified, or bipolar disorder is currently being overdiagnosed in this age group.”

The study’s lead author, Mark Olfson, . . .