Review Article

The Use of Cannabis as a Predictor of Early Onset of Bipolar Disorder and Suicide Attempts

Table 2

Definitions of age at onset of bipolar disorder.

StudyDesignSample
(bipolar
patients)a
Very early age at onset (in years)Early age at onset (in years)Intermediate age at onset (in years)Late age at onset (in years)

Schürhoff et al., 2000b [10]Cross-sectional210<18>40

Schulze et al., 2002b [17]Cross-sectional169≤20≥35

Post et al., 2003b [18]Cross-sectional320 (202 female; 118 male)≤18>18

Bellivier et al., 2003c [19]Cross-sectional368Median age: 17.4Median age: 25.1Median age: 40.4

Perlis et al., 2004c [20]Cross-sectional1,000<1313–18>18

Lin et al., 2006c [21]Cross-sectional1,856 (211 probands)≤21
Mean age: 16.6
22–28
Mean age: 26
>28
Mean age: 34.7

Benazzi and Akiskal, 2008 [22]Cross-sectional560d<21>21

Hamshere et al., 2009c [23]Cross-sectional1,369Limit: <22
mean age: 18.7
± 3.7
Limit: 25–37
mean age: 28.3
± 5.5
Limit: >40
mean age: 43.3
± 9.1

Etain et al., 2012c [3]Cross-sectional652<21≥21

(based on Hamshere et al. 2009 [23]).
aSome studies do not classify the patients whose diagnosis was included.
bAge of both bipolar disorder (BD) type I and BD type II.
cAge of BD type I.
d336 BD type II and 224 unipolar major depressive disorder.