More Kids Diagnosed as Bipolar but Should They Be? - WSJ

In the mid-1990s, 25 out of every 100,000 children were diagnosed as bipolar. By 2003, that number had increased by a factor of 40, to 1,003 out of every 100,000 children, according to an analysis published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The researchers aren’t sure what to make of their findings, which are based on an annual federal survey. “[E]ither bipolar disorder was historically underdiagnosed in children and adolescents and that problem has now been rectified, or bipolar disorder is currently being overdiagnosed in this age group,” they write. (It’s also possible that both are true.)