The role of social support in bipolar disorder is
less well understood. Studies of adults have dem-
onstrated that bipolar patients perceive less social
support than normal controls (6, 7), and actually
receive less support than medical or normal con-trols (4, 7). The brief literature suggests that the
effect of poor social support in bipolar illnesses can
be particularly hazardous. Doi (8) and Speer (7)
demonstrated that bipolar patients report less
family support and a greater likelihood of living
in a residential facility than do patients with a
major depressive disorder. Patients with bipolar
disorder have been shown to have low social
interactions, high expressed emotion in the home,
and increased family dysfunction and interpersonal
conflict (9, 10). O’Connell et al. (11), in a study that
included older subjects, found that limited social
support was associated with increased mood symp-
toms during the year following hospitalization,
while Johnson et al. (12) found that social support