Varun Bisessar

Professor Grove

ENGL21003

11/19/2018

Declaration of Topic:

My intended line of study stems from literature review paper in which I reviewed the literature currently available regarding the comorbidity of bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Using the information, I gathered I will base my research paper around the fact that the comorbidity of OCD and BD introduces clinical complications for psychiatrists. I plan to take second approach of a research proposal/grant proposal model paper, a particular line of inquiry in field of study is the comorbidity of these disorders introduces clinical complications. Throughout my paper, I will value the methodologies that psychiatrists have implemented to ease the clinical complications. Most of the data I collected will transition from the sources used to draft the literature review. Many of the sources I have gathered argue that there is no institutionally accepted methodology for gradual treatment and this results in confusions within the field.

I am interested in this topic because of an introduction to psychology class I took during freshman year. When learning about disorders and the brain in the class I was most interested. On the topic of schizophrenia, the professor in that class explained to us that a patient suffering from such disorder could have symptoms such as allergies during one personality and have those symptoms repealed when experiencing a different personality. I found this weird and interesting and recently when I found that two disorders can co-occur in which symptoms of one disorder can become evident during a manic episode, that same confusion I has last semester remerged. The comorbid disorder I focused on in the literature review was bipolar-OCD, this disorder revealed that BD and OCD cooccurring is an ongoing discussion in the field of psychology. However, a trend I found in my field was there is not enough research being produced around this condition which lead to questions about whether there are suitable medications for this comorbid disorder. Naturally the medications used to treat these disorders separately cannot be used when they co-occur because the medication can exacerbate the conditions of the secondary disorder. In the research paper I will focus more on the inquiries on the clinical complications and how these clinical complications can be used to gradually develop a placebo or generally accepted methodology of treatment.

Progress Report:

My research paper is going to draw mostly from my literature review paper. My literature review paper covered the discussions among psychiatrists regarding bipolar-OCD, using those discussions I will focus on the studies to explain the etiology of both BD and OCD. I have located my new sources and will try to incorporate the five sources used in my literature review to the research paper. My two new sources will take longer for me to decipher as I draft my outline for my research paper. The citation guidelines I plan to use is APA, being that my literature review was focused on a study of psychology I also used APA and deemed it suitable for the research paper as the focus builds upon data from my literature review.

Plan of Action:

My plan of action starts with researching the two new sources I chose and organizing an outline to write my first draft. Incorporating the sources into my first draft will be displayed throughout my outline. After completing my outline, I can begin my first draft, I will use the comments I receive on the first draft to decide whether or not I will submit another draft before the final draft is due. Sending in multiple drafts will most likely adhere to my plan of action because I can gradually develop my paper with comments of progression. Being that in my literature review paper will be used to develop my research paper, my grant proposal will attempt to address the problem regarding the clinical complications of bipolar-OCD. The problem regarding the clinical complications stems from the fact that many of the studies regarding bipolar-OCD are conducted in India and China, therefore the scale sizes of the research groups is limited in the number of patients that can be studied. The proposal will value the line of inquiry of trial and error use of medications to test their effects on patients suffering from bipolar-OCD.

Annotated Bibliography:

1. Martin Cederlöf, Paul Lichtenstein, Henrik Larsson, Marcus Boman, Christian Rück, Mikael Landén, David Mataix-Cols; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Psychosis, and Bipolarity: A Longitudinal Cohort and Multigenerational Family Study, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Volume 41, Issue 5, 1 September 2015, Pages 1076–1083, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbu169

The source above describes that OCD can cooccur with bipolar disorders, stressing that the comorbidity of this condition often complicates the clinical management of the primary disorder conditions from the secondary disorder conditions. The study covers data from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and tests the potential effect of medication on these comorbid disorders. The study concludes that OCD and BD are etiologically related. This paper will contribute to my paper as a whole because I will be referencing the efforts by the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register to describe the reaction of patients to separate types of treatments. This source will be used as a supporting argument that OCD and BD produced clinical complications for psychiatrists. The strengths of my source are it has a solid set of citations backing the study up, the study was published by professors in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. The article shares the data in charts and clarifies what the data recognizes making it understandable to the audience. The weaknesses of this source surround the randomization of patient records used, representing 80% of the OCD cases used. Also the declaration of funding claiming that the organization had no influence on the study and data produced.

2. Kazhungil F, Mohandas E. Management of obsessive-compulsive disorder comorbid with bipolar disorder. Indian J Psychiatry. 2016;58(3):259-269.

The source above explores OCD and BD as one of the most common comorbidities in this field of discussion. Similar to my other source, this source explores the clinical complications of this comorbid condition. This source however does not conduct its own study and reviews the findings of many studies to detail the effects of uses of specific medications to attempt to treat bipolar-OCD. Similar to the other source both criticize the lack of studies focused on establishing an institutionally accepted treatment to this comorbid disorder. This source will contribute to my paper as a whole as a background source. This source presents arguments for and against uses of certain medications. This source has a solid set of citations backing it up and is published by professor Firoz Kazhungil of the Department of Psychiatry at the Government Medical College in Kerala, India. Kazhungil wrote another article that I used in my literature review which makes his work easier for me to understand. This article is easy to read, and all the data is presented in understandable language. Each medication used has its effectiveness described under separate subheadings. This article will guide most of the background information for a grant proposal because my proposal will be focused on attempting to address the problem regarding the clinical complications of bipolar-OCD, being that this article exposes potential ways to overcome the clinical complication makes it ideal for my background source.