Antidepressant light therapy for bipolar patients: A meta-analyses.

BACKGROUNDS: Bipolar depression is still a very difficult to treat condition with low success rates of antidepressant drugs, high rates of morbidity and suicide risk and antidepressant-emergent mania risk. Despite a growing body of evidence has been generated over the last decade about Light Therapy (LT) as an effective treatment for depression the management of it continues to be a point of debate for Bipolar Disorder especially when considering non-seasonal pattern.

METHODS

We systematically screened current literature using the PubMed electronic platform. We considered "mood disorder", "depression" and "light therapy" as keywords for the search.

RESULTS

We retrieved 1907 papers. After the screening, we selected 11 papers to be included in the analysis, treating 195 patients affected by bipolar depression. 5 studies were RCT studies. The overall analysis, including non-RCTs, showed a positive effect of the treatment in all the included studies (ESs: -1.46, 95% CI:-1.677 to -1.242; p<0.001). A significant effect of LT compared to placebo was found also in RCTs (ESs: -0.501, 95% CI: - 0.777 to -0.225; p<0.001).

LIMITATIONS: A high heterogeneity between the studies was found when including non-RCTs and the number of RCTs was small

CONCLUSION

We confirmed the -efficacy of LT as antidepressant non-pharmacological therapy also in bipolar depression.