Is there consensus across international evidence-based guidelines for the management of bipolar disorder?

To examine the level of agreement across professionally auspiced evidence-based guidelines for managing the bipolar disorders.

A literature search in PubMed, the National Guideline Clearinghouse, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and PsycInfo was undertaken using the search terms 'bipolar disorder' and 'guidelines', generating 11 evidence-based guidelines published by professional organisations over the 2002-2015 period. Each guideline was reviewed by two independent reviewers and key themes extracted via qualitative analyses.

There was agreement on issues such as the first-line treatment of mania where mood-stabilising and/or an antipsychotic medication together with tapering or ceasing antidepressant medications was most commonly recommended. Differences included the extent to which (i) the different bipolar disorders were defined or not, (ii) there were separate recommendations for bipolar I and bipolar II disorders vs. non-differentiating general bipolar management strategies, (iii) 'general' vs. severity-based recommendations were made, and (iv) narrow vs. broad sets of candidate medications were nominated, while there was variable consideration of treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

While there was some consistency across guidelines on key recommendations, there was also substantial inconsistencies, limiting the generation of any 'meta-consensus' model for managing the bipolar disorders.