Prioritization of research addressing antipsychotics for adolescents and young adults with bipolar disorder

Despite a paucity of high-quality evidence about benefits and harms, antipsychotic medication use among adolescents and young adults with bipolar disorder is increasing. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute tasked the Duke Evidence Synthesis Group with creating a prioritized agenda for research in this area that would incorporate the perspectives of relevant stakeholders. We identified a list of potential evidence gaps by reviewing existing literature and engaged a diverse group of 9 stakeholders to expand and refine this list. Using a forced-ranking prioritization method, stakeholders prioritized 10 of 23 potential evidence gaps as the most pressing for future research. These evidence gaps relate to 3 areas: the comparative effectiveness of intervention strategies, the effect of antipsychotics on patient-centered outcomes, and the influence of various patient characteristics on antipsychotic effectiveness. In addition to presenting these findings, we suggest appropriate study designs for addressing the stakeholder-prioritized research questions.