Telepsychiatry effective for bipolar disorder, more research required

Key takeaways:

• A literature review yielded six articles on telepsychiatry for bipolar disorder.
• Telemedicine was found to be effective for patients with bipolar disorder due to ease of scheduling, more accurate diagnosis.

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Telepsychiatry may be a safe and effective tool to treat bipolar disorder in adolescents and adults, but deeper research is needed, according to a poster at the American Society of Psychopharmacology annual meeting.

“We started the research before the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was not any systematic review on how telemedicine would be used in the context of bipolar disorder,” Abigail Farrell, MA, of the clinical and research program in pediatric psychopharmacology and adult ADHD at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio.

Farrell and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review of telemedicine utilization for the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, given an overall increase in usage by state agencies from 2010 to 2017, as well as increased usage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They conducted a search of PubMed, PsycInfo and Medline for articles published through June 23, 2022, with algorithmic search limits attuned to certain keywords such as telepsychiatry, telemedicine, telehealth, bipolar disorder and mania.

Six articles were reviewed, published between 1998 and 2021, which found, in the pre-pandemic period, a relatively small number of bipolar disorder cases were treated via telemedicine compared with PTSD, anxiety or depressive disorders.

Results showed that telepsychiatry may be used safely and effectively for treatment of adolescents and adults with bipolar and can be beneficial due to the ability to schedule more frequent and timely visits to allow for more accurate and available diagnoses.

Conversely, researchers found the literature lacked effective comparisons to in-person treatment, which creates a knowledge gap in determining the relative effectiveness and drawbacks to utilizing telemedicine compared with face-to-face treatment.

Analysis additionally revealed a need for more research with respect to safety and efficacy of telepsychiatry for bipolar in pediatric populations, which the review lacked.

“We believe that telepsychiatry can be effective for bipolar in terms of diagnosis; it can be safe with treatment and effective,” Farrell said. “But we found we need more information about what is gained or lost in using telepsychiatry.”