Bipolar Disorder, Coursework Example

The primary goal of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of pharmacology and psychoeducation treatments for bipolar patients. The reason for this review is because the bipolar patients have mixed results with pharmaceutical drugs and psychoeducation.The secondary goal is review the null hypothesis as accept or reject the null.

In summary, the “Randomized Study of Family-Focused Psychoeducation and Pharmacotherapy” study is to minimize the number of relapses and manic outbreaks combining psychoeducation and pharmacotherapy treatments. The summary points of “The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium” is clinical placebo group studies to measure the effectiveness of the drug with bipolar patients that have been diagnosed with recent manic episodes and hospitalization for manic episodes.

The  hypothesis of “The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium is that patients that take divalproex will have better results and the drug is more useful than lithium. The null hypotheses of the “Randomized Study of Family-Focused Psychoeducation and Pharmacotherapy is the combination of psychoeducation and pharmacoptherpay treating bipolar patients have no significance.

The intervention study for “The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium” utilize placebo group studies with randomization to measure maintenance treatments, manic episodes, and depressive moods. The distinguishingcharacteristic of this intervention study was performed by investigator, groups participants, placebo, and randomized controlled trails. In contrast, the intervention study for” Randomized Study of Family-Focused Psychoeducation and Pharmacotherapy” described as family-focused therapy, pharmacotherapy, and crisis management intervention.

The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium study participants were between the ages of 18-75 years old. There were 372 study participants with over 61% of study participants with at least 1 previous psychiatric hospitalization. The bipolar study required each participant to be verified by clinical diagnosis of bipolar. In addition, they had to meet several criteria’s for bipolar disease such as mandatory score based on the index maniac episodes. The study participants must have experience at least 1 manic episode in the last 3 years. In addition, an episode of partial manic episodes or euthymic episodes. Randomized Study of Family-Focused Psychoeducation and Pharmacotherapy had 101 study participants with average age range from 18-62 years old, 64 women, and 37 men. The participants were chosen from 698-screened inpatient and outpatients’ patients’ medical records history. This study had an detail 8 eligibility criteria for all participants.

The study design for “The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium study was a random placebo double blind group study to compare the usefulness and safety of divalproex sodium based on the placebo and that of lithium carbonate therapy. The preliminary phrase lasted for 3 months or less followed by a 52 week randomized maintenance phase. During the unrestricted phase index, manic episodes were treated at the prudence of the scientist. The criteria could be met with or without drug treatment during the first phase. Any other drugs used other than divalproex and lithium were not used when the random testing began.

The study design for Randomized Study of Family-Focused Psychoeducation and Pharmacotherapy was a face-to-face interview by evaluators covering the last 3 months acute bipolar episodes. The patients were interviewed again at the 3, 6, 9, for psychological improvements and 12, 18 and 24 months for post-treatment analysis.

Conclusions

Both articles had similarities using pharmacotherapy to treatments in their studies along with similar randomization. The differences arethe pharmaceutical based study utilized group therapy and pharmaceutical drugs as primary observation while the second study utilized family therapy and patient education to treat the bipolar conditions. Both studies are important because they bring some new theories about the effects of pharmaceutical drugs giving consumers a better understanding of the drugs. In addition, learning innovative techniques to treat bipolar conditions with combined pharmaceutical and patient education.

The study of the participant’s placebo results indicated that the divalproex was more effective than the placebo and they lithium treatments and the psychoeducation combined with pharmacology treatments was ineffective in bipolar treatments. The results indicated that the divalproex drugs were the best treatment. However, the clinical study has some flaws. The study did not include a history of patients with other underlying diseases that could skew the results. The best example is patients that took the lithium that reacts to heart disease, kidney disease or dehydration may have different effects. The participants taking divalproex drug concentrates on controlling seizures and depression. The patients taking divalproex should have a previous study exclusion because if they suffered with severe migraines or liver damage would skew the results. The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled 12 month Trial of Divalproex and Lithium should havein-depth eligibility requirements that included examining the patient’s medical history. This study we would reject the null hypothesis because patient’s medical history thus additional studies would be warranted. The study of psychoeducation combined with pharmacotherapy found that the combine methods did not show any significant changes to the patient’s bipolar manic conditions. This study would accept the null hypothesis because study supported their study with 2 years of clinical and therapeutic data.