When you want to look up how to treat a disorder, use the broadest source that will work. I mean review articles, textbooks, and clinical practice guidelines. We usually don’t have the time or the need to read and interpret dozens of original research articles!
What are Clinical Practice Guidelines?
Systematically developed statements about clinical practice
Intended to guide decisions in specific clinical circumstances
Ideally, they incorporate input from experts, clinicians, and patients
The developers of the guidelines carefully consider the evidence and base their recommendations on this deliberation
Note: Clinical Practice Guidelines are sometimes called something else, e.g., “Practice Parameters,” or “Good Psychiatric Practice.”
Where to find Clinical Practice Guidelines
I have found that most mental health clinicians don’t know that several mental health professional organizations provide clinical practice guidelines AT NO COST! Not all the available guidelines are relevant to each clinician, but all of us can find some that are directly relevant to our practices. A selected list of guidelines from major organizations is provided below, along with direct links to the pages containing the guidelines.
Below I am providing links to some guidelines that may be of greater interest to most clinicians.
Note: Don’t feel a pressure to start reading them today! 🙂 You just need to know that they exist and to know where to find them when you need them.
My tips on how to use Clinical Practice Guidelines
American Psychiatric Association
Acute Stress Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias
Antipsychotics to treat agitation or psychosis in patients with dementia or see SPMH summary of this guideline
Bipolar Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Delirium
Eating Disorders
HIV/AIDS
Major Depressive Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Panic Disorder
Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults
Schizophrenia
Substance Use Disorders
Suicidal Behaviors
Royal College of Psychiatrists
Note: Most of these reports are available in downloadable PDF format at no cost. The prices noted for some of them are for print copies.
Managing self-harm in young people
Consensus statement on high-dose antipsychotic medication
Good practice in the management of autism (including Asperger syndrome) in adults
British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP)
Bolea-Alamañac B, Nutt DJ, Adamou M, Asherson P, Bazire S, Coghill D, Heal D, Müller U, Nash J, Santosh P, Sayal K, Sonuga-Barke E, Young SJ; British Association for Psychopharmacology. Evidence-based guidelines for the pharmacological management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: update on recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology. J Psychopharmacol. 2014 Mar;28(3):179-203. PubMed PMID: 24526134. Not available free.
Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT)
Yatham LN, Kennedy SH, Parikh SV, Schaffer A, Bond DJ, Frey BN, Sharma V,
Goldstein BI, Rej S, Beaulieu S, Alda M, MacQueen G, Milev RV, Ravindran A,
O’Donovan C, McIntosh D, Lam RW, Vazquez G, Kapczinski F, McIntyre RS, Kozicky J,
Kanba S, Lafer B, Suppes T, Calabrese JR, Vieta E, Malhi G, Post RM, Berk M.
Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) and International
Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) 2018 guidelines for the management of
patients with bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord. 2018 Mar;20(2):97-170. PubMed PMID: 29536616; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5947163. Free full-text available at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5947163/pdf/BDI-20-97.pdf
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management NICE guidelines [CG72]. 2016.
World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry
Bipolar disorders
Acute and longterm treatment of mixed states in bipolar disorder (2017)
Maintenance treatment of bipolar disorders (2013)
Acute bipolar depression (2010)
Treatment of acute mania (2009)
Schizophrenia
Long-term treatment of schizophrenia and
management of antipsychotic-induced side effects (2013)
Acute treatment of schizophrenia and
management of treatment resistance (2012)
Depressive disorders
Treatment of unipolar depressive disorders in primary care (2007)
Anxiety disorders
Treatment of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and posttraumatic
stress disorders (2008)
Substance use disorders
Treatment of substance use and related disorders:
Alcoholism, first revision (2017)
Treatment of substance use and related disorders:
Opioid dependence (2011)
Treatment of substance use and related disorders:
Alcoholism (2008)
Alzheimer’s disease and dementias
Biological treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (2011)
Eating disorders
Pharmacological treatment of eating disorders (2011)
Personality disorders
Treatment of personality disorders (2007)
Paraphilias
Treatment of paraphilas (2010)
Treatment of paraphilias (2016)
Brain stimulation treatments
Brain stimulation treatments in psychiatry (2010)
Agitation Consensus
Assessment and management of agitation in psychiatry (2016)
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)
Here are just some of the many practice guidelines available from AACAP:
Atypical Antipsychotic Medication
Autism
Eating Disorders
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Prescribing Psychotropic Medication to Children
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Children
Tic Disorders
Here are some AACAP practice guidelines that are “coming soon”:
- Child Custody Evaluation (update in progress)
- Language/Learning Disorders (update in progress)
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Adolescents (new parameter in progress)
Unfortunately, some of the important ones are not considered obsolete by AACAP, and so we must wait for them to be updated which will take a long time:
- ADHD
- Anxiety disorders
- Bipolar disorder
- Conduct disorder
- Depressive disorders
- Enuresis
- Oppositional Defiant Disorders
- Stimulant medications
Practice guidelines for ADHD
Bolea-Alamañac B, Nutt DJ, Adamou M, Asherson P, Bazire S, Coghill D, Heal D, Müller U, Nash J, Santosh P, Sayal K, Sonuga-Barke E, Young SJ; British Association for Psychopharmacology. Evidence-based guidelines for the pharmacological management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: update on recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology. J Psychopharmacol. 2014 Mar;28(3):179-203. PubMed PMID: 24526134. Not available free.
Kooij JJS, Bijlenga D, Salerno L, Jaeschke R, Bitter I, Balázs J, Thome J, Dom G, Kasper S, Nunes Filipe C, Stes S, Mohr P, Leppämäki S, Casas Brugué M, Bobes J, Mccarthy JM, Richarte V, Kjems Philipsen A, Pehlivanidis A, Niemela A, Styr B, Semerci B, Bolea-Alamanac B, Edvinsson D, Baeyens D, Wynchank D, Sobanski E, Philipsen A, McNicholas F, Caci H, Mihailescu I, Manor I, Dobrescu I, Saito T, Krause J, Fayyad J, Ramos-Quiroga JA, Foeken K, Rad F, Adamou M, Ohlmeier M, Fitzgerald M, Gill M, Lensing M, Motavalli Mukaddes N, Brudkiewicz P, Gustafsson P, Tani P, Oswald P, Carpentier PJ, De Rossi P, Delorme R, Markovska Simoska S, Pallanti S, Young S, Bejerot S, Lehtonen T, Kustow J, Müller-Sedgwick U, Hirvikoski T, Pironti V, Ginsberg Y, Félegyházy Z, Garcia-Portilla MP, Asherson P. Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD. Eur Psychiatry. 2018 Nov 16;56:14-34. PubMed PMID: 30453134.
NICE. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management. NICE guideline [NG87]
Subcommittee on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; Steering Committee on Quality Improvement and Management, Wolraich M, Brown L, Brown RT, DuPaul G, Earls M, Feldman HM, Ganiats TG, Kaplanek B, Meyer B, Perrin J, Pierce K, Reiff M, Stein MT, Visser S. ADHD: clinical practice guideline for the diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents. Pediatrics. 2011 Nov;128(5):1007-22. doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2654. Epub 2011 Oct 16. PubMed PMID: 22003063; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4500647.
Practice guidelines for Autism
Practice guidelines for Bipolar disorder
Practice guidelines for Depressive disorders
Last modified February 2019
Copyright 2017 to 2019, Rajnish Mago, MD. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without express written permission.
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