Session Information
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Session Title: Vasculitis - Poster III: Rarer Vasculitides
Session Type: ACR Poster Session C
Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM
Background/Purpose: Frequency of psychiatric disorders in Behçet’s syndrome (BS) is a debated issue: while some experts attribute their presence to the chronicity of the illness, others think that they may be imputable to disease activity or to intrinsic features of the disease. The primary aims were to determine the frequency of psychiatric disorders in BS patients, both with neurological involvement or without; the secondary aims were: to investigate a possible association between disease activity/organ involvement and psychiatric profile of the BS patients and to compare the distribution of psychiatric disorders of patients with BS with those in patients with other chronic diseases.
Methods: One hundred and six-teen BS patients with a diagnosis of BS according the ISG criteria were studied. Demographic profile of the cohort studied are summarised in Table 1. Psychiatric disorders evaluated were: bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and sleep disorders. Age and sex matched disease controls of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and chronic arterial hypertension were included.
| Neuro- BS | BS without neurological involvement | |
| Number of patients | 46 | 70 |
| M/F | 36/10 | 44/26 |
| Mean age ± SD (min-max) (years) | 43±6 (15-68) | 42±8 (18-71) |
| Mean disease duration ± SD (min-max) (years) | 9±2 (2-28) | 10±2 (3-28) |
Table 1. Demographic profile.
Results: Prevalence of psychiatric disorders are shown in Table 2.
| psychiatric disorders |
Neuro- BS % |
BS without neurological involvement % |
| bipolar disorder | 67 | 64 |
| obsessive-compulsive disorder | 46 | 43 |
| depression | 32 | 36 |
| sleep disorders | 11 | 16 |
Table 2. Prevalence of psychiatric disorders.
The frequency of bipolar disorder resulted significantly higher than in disease controls (p < 0.001). Moreover, we found a significant correlation between disease activity (evaluated by BDCAF) and the presence of bipolar disorder. No correlations were found between the presence of psychiatric disorders and organ involvement.
Conclusion: Our results show a high frequency of psychiatric disorders in BS patients. This elevated frequency, both in BS patient with or without neurological involvement, strongly suggest that BS patients may be characterised by a specific psychiatric profile. The correlation between disease activity and bipolar disorder could provide the basis for further analysis on lager cohorts, in order to better explore the mechanisms responsible for the occurrence of psychiatric disorders and BS .
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Talarico R, Elefante E, Palagini L, d'Ascanio A, Stagnaro C, Tani C, Baldini C, Neri R, Mosca M. Psychiatric Involvement and Behcet’S Syndrome: Does Bipolar Disorder Represent a Clinical Feature of the Disease? [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2016; 68 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/psychiatric-involvement-and-behcets-syndrome-does-bipolar-disorder-represent-a-clinical-feature-of-the-disease/. Accessed January 20, 2021.« Back to 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/psychiatric-involvement-and-behcets-syndrome-does-bipolar-disorder-represent-a-clinical-feature-of-the-disease/