While early intervention in psychotic disorders has received much attention over the last few years, early intervention in bipolar disorders is still in its infancy. Such developments are greatly needed in order to reduce the usually very long duration of untreated illness and perhaps to improve outcome that often remains rather poor. Besides promoting earlier diagnosis of first-episode mania and exploring ways to characterize bipolar depression, identification of patients during the prodromal phase to their first manic episode has emerged as a valid domain of investigation. The observation that symptoms developing during this phase are likely to be very non-specific has lead to the recent development of two strategies which may improve the situation. However, to date there is no valid way to identify patients in the prodromal phase to bipolar disorders and more research is warranted in this area.
Keywords: early intervention, bipolar disorder, prodrome, mania, first episode