MedWire News: A new psychological treatment immediately improves anxiety and depressive symptoms in patients with bipolar disorder, study results suggest.

Poorer overall outcomes have been associated with high rates of concurrent illness in patients with bipolar disorder, explain lead investigator Dr J Williams, from the University of Oxford in Headington, UK, and colleagues.

Indeed, up to 15% of bipolar disorder patients admitted to hospital die from suicide. Risk factors include co-morbid anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which combines cognitive therapy and meditation, has proven effective in preventing recurrent depression. It is also closely related to other approaches used to treat concurrent anxiety disorders.

Dr Williams and team assigned 68 patients with bipolar disorder or depression to receive mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (comprising weekly, 2-hour therapist-led sessions for 8 weeks plus daily meditation homework 6 times weekly) or to a waitlist group.

All participants had a history of at least one prior major depression episode accompanied by thoughts of suicide. During the study, all participants were encouraged to attend outpatient services and receive medication for their illness.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was shown to significantly limit increased anxiety in bipolar patients but not in depressed patients. Additionally, both depressed and bipolar patients receiving mindfulness-based cognitive therapy experienced declines in depressive symptoms compared to the waitlist patients.

"This is the first study to assess the immediate benefits of mindfulness-based cognition therapy for people with bipolar disorder," say the researchers in the Journal of Affective Disorders, adding that the results suggest that both anxiety and depressive symptoms are improved in suicidal bipolar patients. Further investigation is warranted.