Ziprasidone for the Treatment of Generalized Anxiety in Patients With Bipolar Disorder

This study would be the first prospective, placebo-controlled study to our knowledge of any pharmacotherapy strategy for the treatment of comorbid generalized anxiety (or any comorbid anxiety) in patients with bipolar disorder. Our hypotheses are: 1. Ziprasidone flexibly dosed from 40 to 160 mg/day will reduce anxiety symptoms significantly more than placebo in patients with bipolar disorder who have a full or subsyndromal diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). 2. Ziprasidone will be well tolerated in patients with generalized anxiety based on the incidence of treatment emergent adverse effects during 8 weeks of therapy, and based on a lack of worsening of bipolar depression, mania or hypomania compared to placebo. 3. Treatment with ziprasidone will have a significantly greater positive impact on measures of quality of life and resilience than placebo.