Compared with bipolar disorder type I, individuals with bipolar disorder type II experience higher mood instability during depression, per study data published in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorder.
Investigators abstracted data from the MONARCA II trial, a single-blind parallel-group study on the effect of smartphone-based self-monitoring on patient outcomes. The study cohort comprised patients with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder type I or II who were treated at the Copenhagen Clinic for Affective Disorders in Denmark between 2004 and January 2016. Patients were randomly assigned to 9 months of either daily self-monitoring with the smartphone-based MONARCA II system or treatment as usual. The analysis used only data from the intervention arm. The MONARCA II system allowed for evaluation of the following metrics: mood, sleep duration, medicine intake, activity level, mixed mood, irritability, anxiety, cognitive problems, alcohol consumption, and stress. The severity of patient depressive and manic symptoms was evaluated at baseline and re-evaluated at 4 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17-items (HDRS) and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), respectively. Regression analyses were performed to evaluate the relationship between mood indexes and bipolar disorder type.