Further evidence that severe scores in the aggression/anxiety-depression/ attention subscales of child behavior checklist (severe dysregulation profile) can screen for bipolar disorder symptomatology: A conditional probability analysis

Background Previous work shows that children with high scores (2SD, combined score 210) on the Attention Problems, Aggressive Behavior, and Anxious-Depressed (A-A-A) subscales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) are more likely than other children to meet criteria for bipolar (BP)-I disorder. However, the utility of this profile as a screening tool has remained unclear. Methods We compared 140 patients with pediatric BP-I disorder, 83 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 114 control subjects. We defined the CBCL-Severe Dysregulation profile as an aggregate cutoff score of 210 on the A-A-A scales. Patients were assessed with structured diagnostic interviews and functional measures. Results Patients with BP-I disorder were significantly more likely than both control subjects (Odds Ratio [OR]: 173.2; 95 Confidence Interval [CI], 21.2 to 1413.8; P<0.001) and those with ADHD (OR: 14.6; 95 CI, 6.2 to 34.3; P<0.001) to have a positive CBCL-Severe Dysregulation profile. Receiver Operating Characteristics analyses showed that the area under the curve for this profile comparing children with BP-I disorder against control subjects and those with ADHD was 99 and 85, respectively. The corresponding positive predictive values for this profile were 99 and 92 with false positive rates of<0.2 and 8 for the comparisons with control subjects and patients with ADHD, respectively. Limitations Non-clinician raters administered structured diagnostic interviews, and the sample was referred and largely Caucasian. Conclusions The CBCL-Severe Dysregulation profile can be useful as a screen for BP-I disorder in children in clinical practice.