[Limitations of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder].

Introduction: It has been studied the possible confusion in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder when there are no clear mania symptoms and other psychiatric disorders, due to his clinic similarity. The diagnosis received from a group of patients admitted in a Psychiatric Unit of a General Hospital by manic episode were studied.

Methods and material: 84 admitted patients have been followed up along an average of 32 months. By means logistic regression, there were found the factors that explained the change in the diagnosis along the evolution.

Results: 87% of the patients after the follow up kept the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. However, 63.1% had received other diagnosis. Two factors predicted to receive other diagnosis: depressive clinic and not having stable couple.

Conclusion: Bipolar disorder presents a proper stability once diagnosis have been made. It may be confused with psychotic sight, unipolar depression and B cluster personality disorders. It is checked that patients which start with manic psychosis phases are the ones that present biggest diagnosis stability.