Differences in prevalence and patterns of substance use in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Psychological Medicine (2008), 38:1241-1249

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have partly overlapping clinical profiles, which include an over-representation of substance-use behaviour. There are few previous studies directly comparing substance-use patterns in the two disorders.

The objective of the present study was to compare the prevalence of substance use in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and investigate possible differences in pattern and frequency of use.

Patients with bipolar disorder had higher rates of alcohol consumption, while schizophrenia patients more often used centrally stimulating substances, had more frequent use of non-alcoholic drugs and more often used more than one non-alcoholic drug. Single use of cannabis was more frequent in bipolar disorder.

The present study showed diagnosis-specific patterns of substance use in severe mental disorder. This suggests a need for more disease-specific treatment strategies, and indicates that substance use may be an important factor in studies of overlapping disease mechanisms.

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