ABSTRACT
Until the 1990s, the development of treatment guidelines was not a topic for bipolar disorder. At that time, bipolar disorder was a clearly and restrictive-defined illness and the treatment options were limited. Since then the understanding of bipolar disorder broadened, and in parallel, the number of medications proving efficacy in at least one phase of the illness drastically increased. Thus, not only diagnosis, but also treatment became more complex and there was an obvious need to give treating clinicians some kind of guidance. Especially during the recent years, a plenty fold of national guidelines has been developed, for example, the Canadian (1,2), the Dutch (3), the Austrian (4), the Australian and New Zealand (5), the Danish (6), the German (7), the APA practice guidelines (8), the North American Expert consensus Guideline series (9), the Texas consensus conference algorithm (10), and the BAP guidelines (11), and this list is far from being complete. Besides those national treatment recommendations, the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) developed multinational guideline series for the acute treatment of bipolar depression, mania, and maintenance treatment (12-14).
