Background: Individuals with bipolar disorder respond to affective symptoms with a range of coping behaviours, which may further maintain the symptoms.
Aims: To examine moment-to-moment dynamics between affective states and coping behaviours, and to evaluate the role of cognitive appraisals of internal states as moderators.
Method: Forty-six individuals with bipolar disorder completed a clinical interview and an experience sampling assessment over 6 days. Time-lagged analyses were conducted by multilevel regression modelling.
Results: A total of 1807 momentary entries were analysed. Negative affect predicted an increase in rumination at the subsequent time point (β = 0.21, s.e. = 0.08, P = 0.009, 95% CI 0.05-0.36), and vice versa (β = 0.03, s.e. = 0.01, P = 0.009, 95% CI 0.01-0.05). Positive affect predicted an increase in adaptive coping (β = 0.26, s.e. = 0.11, P = 0.018, 95% CI 0.04-0.47), and vice versa (β = 0.02, s.e. = 0.01, P = 0.019, 95% CI 0.00-0.03). Positive affect also predicted a decrease in rumination (β = -0.15, s.e. = 0.06, P = 0.014, 95% CI -0.26 to -0.03), and vice versa (β = -0.03, s.e. = 0.01, P = 0.016, 95% CI -0.06 to -0.01). Extreme cognitive appraisals predicted stronger associations between affective states and coping behaviours.
Conclusions: Feedback loops between affective states and coping behaviours were revealed in the daily life of individuals with bipolar disorder, which were moderated by extreme cognitive appraisals.
Declaration of interest: None.
Keywords: Bipolar disorder; affect; cognitive appraisals; coping; experience sampling.