AACAP honors Pittsburgh psychiatric professor with Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation award

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is pleased to announce David A. Axelson, M.D, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and Director, Child and Adolescent Bipolar Services, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, as the recipient of the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Award for Research in Depression or Suicide for his paper, "Course of Subthreshold Bipolar Disorder in Youth: Diagnostic Progression From Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified," published in the October 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and online at www.jaacap.org.

AACAP's Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Award for Research in Depression or Suicide is supported by the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation. The foundation awards grants to major medical institutions for post-doctoral fellowships in child and adolescent ADHD and child and adolescent depression. It also funds medical student programs in child and adolescent psychiatry at select medical institutions.

The study, which aimed to determine the frequency of diagnostic conversion from bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (BP-NOS) to bipolar I disorder (BP-I) or bipolar II disorder (BP-II), followed 140 children and adolescents from the Course and Outcome of Bipolar Youth (COBY) study who met diagnostic criteria for BP-NOS at intake and participated in at least one follow-up evaluation. During the average 5-year follow-up period, 63 participants (45%) converted from BP-NOS to either BP-I or BP-II. Factors associated with conversion included white race, lifetime history of psychiatric hospitalization, severity of manic symptoms at intake, and a negative lifetime history of psychotic symptoms. Of those that converted, 58% had a history of family mania or hypomania, which was found to be the strongest predictor of conversion. The clinical implications of this study are highlighted in an accompanying editorial by Deputy Editor Ellen Leibenluft, M.D., who explains that "Axelson et al. indicate how our current, largely categorical mode of diagnostic thinking will eventually be merged with a more dimensional perspective."

Dr. Axelson presented "Course of Subthreshold Bipolar Disorder in Youth: Diagnostic Progression From Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" at AACAP's 59th Annual Meeting, October 25, 2012, in San Francisco.