Effects of treatment latency on response to maintenance treatment in manic-depressive disorders.

Objectives: To further test the hypothesis that past illness episodes and delay of long-term treatment do not limit maintenance treatment response among patients with manic-depressive illnesses (MDI).

Methods: In a sample of 764 MDI patients in Cagliari and Berlin, 77% of whom had bipolar disorder (BPD), we: (i) correlated treatment latency or pretreatment episode counts versus hospitalized morbidity during treatment; (ii) correlated treatment duration versus pretreatment morbidity; (iii) correlated treatment latency versus pretreatment or treated morbidity; (iv) modeled factors associated with longer treatment latency; (v) compared treatment latencies at extremes of treatment outcomes, and (vi) compared pretreatment morbidity within 2 years of the longest versus shortest treatment latency quartiles.

Results: Pretreatment morbidity was strongly correlated with shorter treatment latency, but morbidity during treatment was unrelated to treatment latency, pretreatment episode counts, sex, diagnosis, treatment type or treatment duration.