Correlates of insight among patients with bipolar I disorder in remission

Background: The aims of this study were to explore the levels of insight in a group of bipolar patients in remission and to investigate factors related to capacity for insight. Methods: Using the Schedule of Assessment of Insight (SAI) and its expanded version (SAI-E), we interviewed 65 patients with bipolar I disorder in remission to determine their levels of insight. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the factors that influenced insight. Results: Our results revealed that most of our bipolar subjects had fair or good insight, though some residual insight impairment was still observed. Multiple regression analysis revealed that being male, having a shorter duration of illness and having psychotic features predicted poorer insight in two dimensions of SAI and SAI-E, accounting for 18.6–23% of the variance. Limitations: The six independent variables used in these multiple regression could only account in part for the variance of insight, indicating that there must be other variables that influence insight of bipolar patients in remission. Conclusions: These results indicated that bipolar patients with the factors predicting poor insight should possibly receive interventions to improve their insight and advance their recovery.