The 24-month course of manic symptoms in children.

Objectives: The Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms (LAMS) study was designed to investigate phenomenology and establish predictors of functional outcomes in children with elevated manic symptoms. The purpose of this series of analyses was to determine whether the participants demonstrated different trajectories of parent-reported manic and biphasic symptoms over the first 24 months of follow-up and to describe the clinical characteristics of the trajectories.

Methods: The 707 participants were initially aged 6-12 years and ascertained from outpatient clinics associated with the four university-affiliated LAMS sites.