Associations between general sleep quality and measures of functioning and cognition in subjects recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder

Abstract

The study aimed to assess whether sleep quality is associated with global functioning and cognition in subjects that recently converted to bipolar disorder (BD), subjects without mood episodes at follow-up and subjects with a recurrent depressive episode in a sample of depressed adults. Significantly worse scores were found in global functioning, sleep quality, and cognitive complaints in the BD and recurrent depression groups when compared to the group without mood episode at follow-up. The findings also showed a significant association between functioning and cognitive complaints with sleep quality in all groups. The cross-sectional design prevents the inference of the causal relationship between sleep quality and measures of cognition and functioning. The authors reinforce the need to follow-up in order to improve functional and cognitive outcomes, notably with patients with BD, who may suffer in addition to damage caused by sleep alterations, also with neuroprogression in the long term.