ABSTRACT

Objectives

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder that begins with a mood episode which usually occurs during adolescence. In the present study, it was aimed to compare the euthymic adolescents diagnosed with BD with healthy adolescents in terms of social cognition and emotion regulation.

Materials and Methods

In this study, 27 adolescents diagnosed with BD who applied to İzmir Katip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Child Psychiatry were included as the case group, and 28 adolescents similar in age and gender were included as the control group. Faces, eyes and faux pas tests, among theory of mind tests, were applied to the case and control groups to evaluate social cognition. Emotion regulation difficulties were evaluated with the difficulties in emotion regulation scale (DERS).

Results

The control group received statistically significantly higher scores than the case group in all three theory of mind tests: faces, eyes and faux pas test. Additionally the case group received statistically significantly higher scores than the control group in both the total score and subscales of the DERS. The relationship between the total score of DERS and theory of mind tests of the case and control groups was examined with the Pearson correlation test, and a significant negative relationship was found between them.

Conclusion

In our study, it was shown that adolescents diagnosed with BD had more difficulties in emotional regulation and also had difficulties in theory of mind skills. Emotion regulation difficulties were also found to be related to difficulties in theory of mind skills.