Illness Representations in Patients With Bipolar Disorders. What Mecanisms and What Impacts on Adherence and Quality of Life ?

Bipolar disorder is a serious and chronic illness representing a major health problem with high mortality rates (Colom and Lam, 2005). According to the self-regulation model (Leventhal, Nerenz & Steel, 1986), patients had some representations of their illness which are cognitive and emotional. Cognitive representations include the set of beliefs built around the illness, its consequences and treatment. Emotional representations are negative emotions generated by the presence of the illness. According to Leventhal et al. (1997), representations are linked to information extracts by patients from society, relatives, experiences. This model has been particularly studied in the context of somatic disorders, but Baines & Wittkowski (2013) shown that it may also be relevant in patients with mental disorders. In bipolar disorders, first results show that illness representations are related to relapses (Lobban et al., 2013) and to medication adherence (Averous, Charbonnier, Lagouanelle-Simeoni, Prosperi & Dany, 2018). That's why, we think that this relevant to improve knowledges of the psychological processes that accompany the experience of bipolar disorders. To assess illness representation, we will use both qualitative and quantitative tools. These results could have direct application to clinical practice in psychosocial interventions.