Aswin Ratheesh1,2, Ming Fang, Christopher Davey, Michael Berk3, Patrick McGorry, Sue Cotton2; 1Orygen Youth Health, 2Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, 3Deakin University
Background: Youth with early stage Bipolar Disorders (BD) typically receive care in generic mental health services or youth early psychosis services. The lack of specific guidelines for their care could lead to heterogeneous and non-standardised care. We aimed to examine whether concordance with available guidelines was associated with better outcomes over 10-24 months of prospective follow-up. Methods: We conducted a file-audit study of all participants aged 15-25 years with BD I or II referred to a tertiary youth mental health service in Melbourne, Australia between 01/01/2014 and 30/06/2015. Concordance with three guidelines were established using a checklist developed for this purpose. All items relating to youth, early stage BD and care within an early intervention service were selected. A guideline concordance score was developed for each file. The primary outcome selected was the Global Assessment of Functioning scale score at the point of discharge (10-24 months from initial referral). We propose to examine the relationship between the discharge GAF scores and guideline concordance scores using linear regressions, controlling for a) age, b) gender, c) baseline illness severity, d) baseline GAF score and e) type of BD diagnosis. Results: Of the 90 participants selected, half had a BD I diagnosis and were treated in the early psychosis clinic, while the remaining had a BD II diagnosis and received care from the mood disorders clinic. Results from the regression analyses will be presented. The results could have implications for the development of a specific guideline for youth with early stage BD.
