Table 1.
Study participant characteristics.
Table 2.
The relationships between relative hypo- and hypercortisolism and mean questionnaire scores among bipolar patients.
Figure 1.
Illustration of relative hypo- and hypercortisolism in relation to depression, anxiety, global functioning and life quality.
Post-DST cortisol groups were formed by using the 25th and 75th percentiles among the controls as cut-offs to divide both controls and patients into 3 groups. A low post DST cortisol value (subjects below the 25th percentile) was used to identify subjects exhibiting relative hypocortisolism and a high post DST cortisol value (subjects above the 75th percentile) was used to identify subjects exhibiting relative hypercortisolism. Subjects showing post DST cortisol values between the 25th and 75th percentiles were identified as subjects exhibiting eucortisolism. The bars illustrate the differences in mean questionnaire scores relative to the mean of the whole bipolar patient sample which is indicated by the base-line. A bar marked with an asterisk denotes a significant difference, evaluated using Student's t-test, between relative hypocortisolism or relative hypercortisolism and the reference group exhibiting eucortisolism. The error bars represent standard errors. BAI, Beck Anxiety Inventory; BDI, Beck Depression Inventory; DST, Dexamethasone Suppression Test; GAF, Global Assessment of Functioning (best period of three months last year); QOL, Overall Quality of Life and general health. *p<0.05.
Table 3.
The relationships between relative hypo- and hypercortisolism and depression as well as low global functioning and quality of life in bipolar disorder.
Table 4.
Correlations between questionnaire scores and the absolute post-DST cortisol deviation among bipolar patients.