Seasonal patterns and climate change anxiety in mood disorders: a comparative study of bipolar disorder and depression

Abstract Background Seasonal variations significantly influence mental health conditions, with emerging evidence suggesting climate change may exacerbate these effects. While seasonal patterns in mood disorders are well-documented, the relationship between climate change anxiety and symptom manifestation remains understudied. This study aimed to assess the effect of climate change on symptom severity among patients with bipolar and depression across seasonal variation and its determinants. A cohort study was conducted at Assiut University Hospital’s outpatient clinic, involving 40 bipolar disorder patients, 40 depression patients, and 37 healthy controls. Participants underwent comprehensive psychiatric evaluations using standardized tools including the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), climate change anxiety (CCA), the Symptom Checklist-90–Revised (SCL-90-Rvised), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) across all seasons. Results Both clinical groups demonstrated significant seasonal patterns in their symptoms, with peaks occurring during summer and winter as measured by SCL, BDI, and YMRS. Climate change anxiety was markedly higher in both clinical groups compared to the control group, with the most pronounced differences observed during the summer and winter months. Additionally, the clinical groups scored significantly higher across all personality inventory subscales while performing worse on both MOCA and all IQ measures when compared to healthy controls. In the bipolar group onset of disease in autumn shows a negative association with climate anxiety across seasons while educational level shows a positive association with climate anxiety across autumn, winter, and spring. In both clinical groups, BDI showed a statistically significant association with climate anxiety during autumn, winter, and spring, also all SCL-90 subscales showed a strong association with climate anxiety during autumn and spring. Conclusions The study concludes that seasonal variations significantly impact both symptom manifestation and climate change anxiety in mood disorders, with distinct patterns observed between bipolar disorder and depression. These findings emphasize the importance of incorporating seasonal considerations into treatment planning and developing targeted interventions for climate-related anxiety in mood disorder patients.