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The British Journal of Psychiatry (2001) 178: s169-s176
© 2001 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

The Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network

1. Rationale and methods{dagger}

ROBERT M. POST, MD1, WILLEM A. NOLEN, MD2, RALPH W. KUPKA, MD2, KIRK D. DENICOFF, MD1, GABRIELE S. LEVERICH, MSW1, PAUL E. KECK, Jr, MD3, SUSAN L. McELROY, MD3, A. JOHN RUSH, MD4, TRISHA SUPPES, MD4, LORI L. ALTSHULER, MD5, MARK A. FRYE, MD5, HEINZ GRUNZE, MD6 and JÖRG WALDEN, MD7

1 Biological Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
2 HC Rümke Group and University Medical Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands
3 Stanley Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
4 Stanley Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA
5 Stanley Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
6 Department of Psychiatry, University of Munich
7 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Freiberg, Germany

Correspondence: Dr Robert M. Post, Biological Psychiatry Branch, NIMH Building 10, Room 35239, 10 Center Drive MSC 1272, Bethesda, MD 20892-1272, USA. Tel: +1 301 496 4805

Declaration of interest Support received from the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation.

{dagger} See Paper 2, pp. s177–s183.

Background The Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network (SFBN) was created to address the paucity of help studies in bipolar illness.

Aims To describe the rationale and methods of the SFBN.

Method The SFBN includes five core sites and a number of affiliated sites that have adopted consistent methodology for continuous longitudinal monitoring of patients. Open and controlled studies are performed as patients' symptomatology dictates.

Results The reliability of SFBN raters and the validity of the rating instruments have been established. More than 500 patients are in continuous daily longitudinal follow-up. More than 125 have been randomised to one of three of the newer antidepressants (bupropion, sertraline and venlafaxine) as adjuncts in a study of mood stabilisers and 93 to omega-3 fatty acids. A number of open clinical case series have been published.

Conclusions Well-characterised patients are followed in a detailed continuous longitudinal fashion in both opportunistic case series and double-blind, randomised controlled trials with reliable and validated measures.




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R. W. KUPKA, W. A. NOLEN, L. L. ALTSHULER, K. D. DENICOFF, M. A. FRYE, G. S. LEVERICH, P. E. KECK Jr, S. L. McELROY, A. J. RUSH, T. SUPPES, et al.
The Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network: 2. Preliminary summary of demographics, course of illness and response to novel treatments
The British Journal of Psychiatry, June 1, 2001; 178 (41): s177 - s183.
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