Intervention trials for adults with bipolar disorder in low-income and lower-middle-income countries: A systematic review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Documents
- Fulltext
Final published version, 692 KB, PDF document
Background: The treatment gap for bipolar disorder is aggravated by economic inequality. Around half of the world's population live in a low-or lower-middle-income country, where research on treatment is scarce. Hence, this review aims to determine the number and types of intervention studies conducted on adults with bipolar disorder in low-income and lower-middle-income countries and analyze the effect of these interventions on symptom severity, medical adherence, and quality of life. Methods: A systematic review was conducted in June and November 2021 using eight databases. Controlled intervention trials on adults with bipolar disorder on data from low-income and lower-middle-income countries at time of publication were included. The risk of bias was assessed using the Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials or The Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions assessment tool. Results: Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. These were divided into four subtypes based on the intervention; pharmacotherapy (=12), psychosocial (=7), electroconvulsive therapy (=1), and traditional medicine (=1). Three studies were from low-income countries. A high risk of bias characterized the studies; only four studies reported the procedures used for randomization. Most studies, however, identified a beneficial effect on symptom severity, and in addition, medical adherence could be improved with psychosocial interventions. Limitations: Heterogeneity across studies prevented any meaningful pooling of data to meta-analyses. Conclusion: Data for treatment interventions contextualized to the local setting for bipolar disorder remains sparse, particularly from low-resource settings. Further studies are urgently needed to target the treatment gap for bipolar disorder. Trial registration: PROSPERO: CRD42020170953.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Journal | Journal of Affective Disorders |
Volume | 311 |
Pages (from-to) | 256-266 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISSN | 0165-0327 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
- Bipolar disorder, Global mental health, Intervention trials, Low-income countries, Low-resource setting, Lower-middle-income countries
Research areas
Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk
ID: 320658234