Clinical use of mood stabilizers beyond treatment for bipolar disorder: The REAP-MS study

Mood stabilizers are psychotropic drugs mainly used to treat bipolar disorder in the acute phase or for maintenance therapy to prevent relapse. In clinical practice, mood stabilizers are commonly prescribed for conditions other than bipolar disorder. This study investigated the distribution of mood stabilizer prescriptions for different psychiatric diagnoses and studied differences in the drugs, dosage, and plasma concentration in 10 Asian countries including Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, China, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Myanmar.

Patients prescribed mood stabilizers (lithium, carbamazepine, valproic acid, or lamotrigine) for a psychiatric condition other than bipolar disorder (codes F31.0-F31.9 in the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition, Clinical Modification) were recruited through convenience sampling. A website-based data entry system was used for data collection.

In total, 1557 psychiatric patients were enrolled. Schizophrenia, schizotypal, delusional, and other non-mood psychotic disorders (F20-F29, 55.8 %) was the most common diagnosis, followed by non-bipolar mood disorders (F30, F31- F39, 25.3 %), organic mental disorder (F00-F09, 8.8 %), mental retardation (F70-F79, 5.8 %) and anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, somatoform and other nonpsychotic mental disorders (F40-F48, 4.4 %). The most frequently targeted symptoms (>20 %) were irritability (48 %), impulsivity (32.4 %), aggression (29.2 %), anger (20.8 %), and psychosis (24.1 %). Valproic acid was the most frequently used medication.

Clinicians typically prescribe mood stabilizers as empirically supported treatment to manage mood symptoms in patients with diagnoses other than bipolar disorders, though there is on official indication for these disorders. The costs and benefits of this add-on symptomatic treatment warrant further investigation.