Measuring a Changing Population Posted on November 19, 2007 Terence A. Ketter (bio) addresses wellness measurement in young adults.

Some of the practical challenges we face in doing this kind of research, particularly if you’re looking at a population where they’re changing, and that’s part and parcel of bipolar disorder, but perhaps even more so in young adults with bipolar disorder, is to try to tailor some of your measures to match what’s going on with these individuals developmentally.

And we will see individuals come in as freshmen, and facing a number of crucial stressors, first time away from home, first time in this kind of high pressure environment, not really sure of what they’re going to end up doing, having the challenge of being socially dislocated. And as they go through the years at school, things get a little bit better so that they have that kind of watershed.

And they end up facing, later on, issues that have more to do with those that would be seen by a young adult, having to do with career, people who have developed relationships and then their boyfriend or girlfriend is going to stay in California and they’re going back east, and making choices between going to graduate school and going out and getting a job. And so some of the outcome measures that we have for people earlier in their university years are not quite as relevant for people later in their university years.

One of the things that has got more of our attention has been measures of wellness. And there are concerns raised that we spend too much time talking about illness and symptoms and sickness, and how do we measure wellness?

I think one thing that is particularly useful is for us not to get stuck on symptoms, maybe even not to get stuck on longitudinal course of the illness, but perhaps trying to focus a little bit at least on longitudinal course of wellness and meeting and attaining developmental milestones, particularly in young adults.

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