Maladaptive personality traits and the course of suicidal ideation in young adults with bipolar disorder: Cross-sectional and prospective approaches

Background Childhood-onset bipolar disorder (BD) has considerable morbidity and mortality, including suicide. Many risk factors have been identified for suicidality, but the potential role of personality traits as assessed by a computer-assisted self-report measure remains unclear. Aims To address this gap in knowledge, we tested relations between pathological-range personality traits and suicidal ideation among young adults whose childhood-onset BD was prospectively confirmed by enrollment in the Course and Outcome of Bipolar Youth study (COBY) as children (n = 45) and a newly enrolled group of typically developing controls (TDCs; n = 52) both cross-sectionally and longitudinally after 1.5 years of follow up. Materials & Methods Personality traits were assessed with the computerized Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality-2 (SNAP-2). Results Cross-sectionally, we found that participants with BD had elevated Suicide Proneness and Low Self-esteem versus TDCs at baseline. Furthermore, longitudinal analyses in the BD participants for whom we had 1.5 years of prospectively collected illness-course data showed that greater Suicide Proneness and Low Self-esteem prospectively predicted greater levels, shorter time until occurrence, and greater frequency of suicidal ideation during the follow-up. Conclusion Our findings suggest the role of specific personality-related vulnerabilities in the course of BD that, pending replication, could contribute to development of interventions focused on personality traits among individuals with BD.