EPA-0492 - Functional remediation in bipolar II patients: improvement of functioning and subsyndromal symptoms

Introduction Recently, Functional Remediation (FR) has proven to be effective in improving the functional outcome of euthymic bipolar patients. Objective Our objective was to test the efficacy of FR programme in a subsample of euthymic bipolar II patients (BPII). Aims The main aim was improve the functional outcome in these patients. Method Post-hoc analyses were undertaken using data of 53 DSM-IV diagnosed BPII outpatients who had participated in a multicentre, rater blind, randomized, controlled trial (RCT) exploring the efficacy of FR (n=17) as compared with a Psychoeducation (PSY) (n=19) and a control (n=17) groups which only treatment as usual (TAU). The primary outcome variable was a functional improvement measured as the mean change in the Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) from baseline to endpoint after intervention. Results Data revealed a significant functional improvement from baseline to endpoint (Pillai's Trace =0.164; F =3.619; p =0.037), suggestive for an interaction between program pertinence and time (pre-post). Nevertheless, Tukey's post-hoc test only revealed a trend in favour of a better outcome for FR when compared to the TAU (p =0.058) and to the PSY group (p =0.062). We also found an interaction between program pertinence and time when analysing the subdepressive symptoms (Pillai's Trace =0.157; F =3.635; p =0.036), so that patients in FR showed a significant reduction in subdepressive symptomatology when compared to the PSY group (p= 0.041). Conclusions The FR program appears to be effective in improving the overall functional outcome in BPII patients, as well as in reducing subdepressive symptoms.