[Methodological proposals for the evaluation of the mood stabilizing effect of an antipsychotic drug]

Antipsychotic drugs are widely used in the long term treatment of bipolar and schizoaffective disorders. Nevertheless clinical trials devoted to the specific assessment of the mood stabilizing effect of these drugs are quite rare. Among recent studies only those by S. McElroy on olanzapine and by R. Bowden on divalproex have included mood symptoms as inclusion and outcome criteria. This paper reviews the different methodological proposals both in term of protocol designs (retrospective, naturalistic, longitudinal and prospective studies) and of efficacy criteria (time to relapse, reasons for drop outs, treatment switch, functional status).