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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Pharmacopsychiatry 2023; 56(05): 182-187
DOI: 10.1055/a-2156-5667
Original Paper

Longitudinal Digital Mood Charting in Bipolar Disorder: Experiences with ChronoRecord Over 20 Years

Michael Bauer
1   Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
,
Tasha Glenn
2   ChronoRecord Association Inc., Fullerton, CA, USA, www.chronorecord.org
,
Martin Alda
3   Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
,
Paul Grof
4   Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, ON, Canada (retired) and Mood Disorders Center of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
,
Rita Bauer
1   Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
,
Ulrich W. Ebner-Priemer
5   Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe, Germany
6   Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Germany
,
Stefan Ehrlich
7   Division of Psychological and Social Medicine and Developmental Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
,
Andrea Pfennig
1   Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
,
Maximilian Pilhatsch
1   Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
,
Natalie Rasgon
8   Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Stanford School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, USA
,
Peter C. Whybrow
9   Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Abstract

Introduction Longitudinal study is an essential methodology for understanding disease trajectories, treatment effects, symptom changes, and long-term outcomes of affective disorders. Daily self-charting of mood and other illness-related variables is a commonly recommended intervention. With the widespread acceptance of home computers in the early 2000s, automated tools were developed for patient mood charting, such as ChronoRecord, a software validated by patients with bipolar disorder. The purpose of this study was to summarize the daily mood, sleep, and medication data collected with ChronoRecord, and highlight some of the key research findings. Lessons learned from implementing a computerized tool for patient self-reporting are also discussed.

Methods After a brief training session, ChronoRecord software for daily mood charting was installed on a home computer and used by 609 patients with affective disorders.

Results The mean age of the patients was 40.3±11.8 years, a mean age of onset was 22±11.2 years, and 71.4% were female. Patients were euthymic for 70.8% of days, 15.1% had mild depression, 6.6% had severe depression, 6.6% had hypomania, and 0.8% had mania. Among all mood groups, 22.4% took 1–2 medications, 37.2% took 3–4 medications, 25.7 took 5–6 medications, 11.6% took 7–8 medications, and 3.1% took >8 medications.

Conclusion The daily mood charting tool is a useful tool for increasing patient involvement in their care, providing detailed patient data to the physician, and increasing understanding of the course of illness. Longitudinal data from patient mood charting was helpful in both clinical and research settings.

Key words

affective disorders - bipolar disorder - longitudinal tracking - digital mood charting


Publication History

Received: 07 August 2023
Received: 09 August 2023

Accepted: 09 August 2023

Article published online:
07 September 2023

© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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