Research Article The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 5, Issue 1,DIP: 18.01.048/20170501 DOI: 10.25215/0501.048 http://www.ijip.in | October-December, 2017 © 2017 B. Bhuvaneshwaran, R. Kumar; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cross Sectional Study on Characteristics of Bipolar Disorder Association with Alcohol Dependence in a Tertiary Care Center in South India B.Bhuvaneshwaran 1 *, R. Kumar 2 ABSTRACT Bipolar disorders are commonly associated with other psychiatric disorders, which influence the course, severity and outcome of the disorder Aim: to study the association of alcohol dependence on bipolar disorder and to compare bipolar patients without alcohol dependence in tertiary care center in south India Methods: A total of 83 patients with age of 18-65 years who were admitted in the acute in-patient ward of the Institute of mental Health were administered M.I.N.I PLUS neuropsychiatric interview module and the patients who fulfil the diagnostic criteria for BPAD after ruling out the secondary causes of mood disorder were included in the study. The scales utilized to study the alcohol dependence association with bipolar disorder are in the form of illness variables and symptoms severity. Results: Group- A (n=42) patients with bipolar disorder and co-morbid alcohol dependence and group-B (n=41) patients with bipolar disorder without alcohol dependence (Group-B) was noted in our study. Strong positive correlation between severity of alcohol dependence score and YMRS score, functioning score, positive scale of PANSS and aggression scores noted and Only treatment adherence, family H/o BPD and family H/o alcohol dependence show significance in the present study. Conclusion: Increase in severity of alcohol dependence is associated with severity of Bipolar disorder. Keywords: Alcohol, Bipolar, Depression, Mania Bipolar disorder (BPD) is a severe and persistent psychiatric illness affecting 1.3% to 1.7% of population [1,2]. It is an episodic illness characterised by the occurrence of manic or depressive episodes. Alcohol dependence rather than alcohol abuse causes changes in neuronal plasticity of different brain circuits which leads to alteration in neuronal transmission causing various psychiatric manifestations [2,3].Alcohol induced mood disorder 1 (Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College, Thoothukudi, Tamilnadu, India) 2 (Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, Sri ManakulaVinayagar Medical College and Hospital, Puducherry, India) *Responding Author Received: August 17, 2017; Revision Received: November 02, 2017; Accepted: November 23, 2017