It’s not always evident to diagnose a bipolar disorder.The difficulties of diagnosis have been demonstrated by several studies, some of which have shown that one out of two bipolars consulted at least three health professionals before receiving a proper diagnosis, with an average period of 10 years evolution prior to diagnosis. hypomania is often experienced by patients as a pleasant experience and not a pathological one, rarely have they reported this phenomenon spontaneously. Thus, the diagnosis of hypomania or BP-II disorder is not established in 50% of cases.

to find the prevalence of bipolar disorder type II in a population of depressed people in order to highlight the role of scales in the early identification of this disease often under-diagnosed.

a prospective study of screening for a history of hypomania in a population of patients hospitalized for consultants or major depressive episode or recurrent depressive disorder; over a period of three months

The diagnoses of MDE and RDD were prepared according to the DSM-IV.TR.

The screening tool is the Hypomania Checklist (HCL French version) which was completed by patients or by the psychiatrist of illiterate patients after its translation into Arabic dialect

Sample of 35 patients: 20 women and 15 men, average age: 34 years; Composed of 25 RDD and 10 MED

15 patients answered “yes” to 10 or more items of the HCL-20, hypomanic history was confirmed by a clinical interview in 13 of them