Is puerperal psychosis bipolar mood disorder?: A phenomenological comparison

Abstract The most widely held current view on puerperal psychosis (PP) is that it is a mood disorder; some researchers have even suggested that it may be linked to bipolar mood disorder (BMD). To compare the phenomena of PP and BMD, 20 patients with PP were compared with 20 concurrent age-matched women with BMD, using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). To exclude patients with possible unipolar disorder, subjects with depression were not considered for inclusion in the study. A significantly greater proportion of the PP group experienced delusions of control, auditory hallucinations, blunted affect, and emotional turmoil. Seven (35%) of the PP patients fulfilled DSM-III-R criteria for BMD. These results do not support the hypothesis that PP and BMD are the same illness. Further research is necessary to explore the possibility of a link between these two conditions.