Thisstudy was to assess the prevalence and its correlates of restless legs syndrome(RLS) in outpatients with bipolar disorder.

A total of 100clinical stabilized bipolar outpatients were examined. The presence of RLS andits severity were assessed using the International Restless Legs Sydrome StudyGroup (IRLSSG) diagnostic criteria. Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), Spielberg's StateAnxiety Inventory (STAI-X-1), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Koreanversion Drug Attitude Inventory (KDAI-10), Subjective Well-Beings under NeurolepticTreatment Scale-Short Form(SWN-K) and Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale (BARS) wereused to evaluate the depressive symptomatology, level of anxiety, subjectivequality of sleep, subjective feeling of well-being, drug attitude, presence ofakathisia, respectively.

Of the 100 bipolar outpatients,7 (7%) were met to full criteria of IRLSSG and 36 (36%) have at least one ofthe 4 IRLSSG criterion. Because of relatively small sample size, non-parametricanalysis were done to compare the characteristics among 3 groups (full-RLS, 1≥positiveRLS-symptom and Non-RLS). There were no significant differences in sex, age, and other sociodemographic and clinical data among 3 groups. BDI, STAI-X-1 andPSQI are tended to be impaired in RLS and 1≥positive RLS-symptomgroups.

This is the first preliminarystudy for studying the prevalence and its correlates of RLS in bipolardisorder. The results shows that RLS was relatively smaller presentin bipolar disorder than schizophrenia. Sametendencies shown in schizophrenic patients were found that bipolar patientswith RLS had more depressive symptoms, state anxiety and poor subjective sleepquality.