Bipolar Spectrum Disorder And The Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale
Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale (BSDS) is a diagnostic tool that contains nineteen questions. The Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale is used to determine if someone with symptoms of a mood disorder has bipolar disorder.
S. Nassir Ghaemi, M.D., M.P.H. refined the Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale originally developed by Ronald Pies, M.D. This diagnostic tool is considered sensitive and can detect all variations and levels of severity of bipolar disorder.
Pies was motivated to create the Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale after he had worked with several people who were labeled as having “treatment-resistant depression” only to discover they actually had bipolar spectrum disorder or mild bipolar disorder. Bipolar spectrum disorder is not an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) which is used by mental health professionals to diagnose psychiatric disorders.
Some mental health professionals use the unofficial diagnosis of bipolar spectrum disorder to refer to people who have bipolar symptoms, but their symptoms are not severe enough for an official bipolar disorder diagnosis. Mild bipolar disorder is sometimes called soft bipolar disorder or soft bipolar spectrum disorder.
The Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale has two sections. The first section contains nineteen sentences that describe the primary symptoms of bipolar disorder. The patient checks the sentences that describe their behavior or feelings.
The second section asks the patient to read the sentences of section one as a narrative that the patients must rate as to how well the nineteen sentence narrative as a whole fits their personal experiences. The first section is scored by awarding one point per sentence that the patient checked as matching their personal experiences.
The second section is scored according to how the narrative is rated by the patient. If the patient indicates that the story fits them very well or almost perfectly, six points are added to the person’s score. Four points are added if the patient says the narrative fits fairly well.
Two points are added if the patient’s rating is that the story fits to some degree but not in most respects. No points are added to the patient’s score if the person says the story does not describe them at all.
If the patient’s total score is nineteen or higher, bipolar disorder is considered highly likely. If the total score is eleven to eighteen, the likelihood of bipolar disorder is moderately probable. There is a low probability of bipolar disorder if the score is six to ten. Bipolar disorder is considered very unlikely if the score is under six.