mental health

http://www.charlotte.com/171/story/262529.html

The diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents has risen fortyfold since 1994, according to a new study released Monday. But researchers partly attributed the dramatic rise to doctors overdiagnosing the serious psychiatric disorder.

The report in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry said bipolar disorder was found in 1,003 of every 100,000 office visits from children and adolescents in 2002-03, compared with 25 of 100,000 office visits in 1994-95.

The diagnosis of bipolar disorder among adults increased twofold during the same period.

The study didn’t investigate the reasons for the explosion in bipolar cases among children and adolescents, which began after the 1998 publication of “The Bipolar Child,” which made the controversial assertion that one-third to one-half of children with depression had bipolar disorder.