How to Create a Research Paper about Bipolar Affective Disorder

The Essence of the Disease

Bipolar affective disorder was formerly referred to as manic-depressive psychosis. It is a prolonged and persistently inherited mental health disorder. This disorder is characterized by moods that differ from usual mood swings. Depressive, manic and mixed states alternation, asymptomatic periods or periods when symptoms are poorly expressed can be observed.

Patients with bipolar affective disorder are extremely likely to suffer from alcoholism or other drug addiction. Abundant use of alcohol contributes to the increase of both manic and depressive symptoms. At the manic stage, the mood is either too good or excited. The manic stage is easier to recognize than a depressive one, as the patient's behavior strikes one's eye with its activity. During the manic stage, a person with bipolar disorder can experience extremely strong feelings and an unusually good mood for weeks or even months.

The manic stage is often characterized by a lack of judgment. A person suffering from a disorder can commit acts that cause difficulties for himself and others. For example, he or she can behave sexually uninhibited. Manic behavior is not necessarily joyful, especially in young people; mania can be manifested through aggressive excitement. In most cases, those who are experiencing the manic stage do not understand that something is wrong, and they do not want to accept the offered help.

Choose a Research Topic

In the study of bipolar disorder, in most cases, the topics of the essay are developed by professors. Students have to select the necessary theme from the list. However, sometimes the learner has the opportunity to choose his or her own subject. Here are a few examples.

• Development of bipolar affective disorder in adolescence.
• Relations between patients and family members.
• The influence of the bipolar affective disorder on the effectiveness of training and professional activities.
• The attitude of the society to the patients suffering from bipolar affective disorder.
• Treatment options for bipolar affective disorder.
• Study of the effectiveness of traditional methods of treatment.
• Diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder in the early stages.
• Alcohol and drug dependence of patients.

Study Different Sources

After you have decided on the topic of your research, you need to learn a lot of materials on this theme. To do this, you need to use Internet resources or visit the library. Find all the necessary information and make notes of the most important facts.

Create an Outline

The outline is the plan, according to which you will work. It does not matter in what form it will be drawn up. This document will help you organize a clear structure of the text.

Write a Draft

Using the outline, create the text of your work. Do not forget what the correct paper structure should be. After you finish working on the draft of the essay, check your text for grammatical, punctuation and stylistic errors and correct them.

Formatting

Observe the requirements of the scientific style, in which you are working. Cite the texts of scientific publications correctly. Make sure there is no plagiarism in your paper.