ABSTRACT
Bipolar disorder is a chronic psychiatric disease often causing disability and significant functional impairment with considerable consequences on the quality of life not only of the patients themselves, but also of their family members and others in their environment (1). The disorder represents a major public-health problem; it frequently requires hospitalization and is associated with significant mortality due to suicide, the rate of which (15-20%) is higher than that in the general population and other psychiatric or medical patient populations (2-4).
