Whether antidepressants should be prescribed to treat
depression in bipolar disorder has been debated for
decades. At the core of this debate is weighing the clinical
benefit of antidepressant treatment against risk of wors-
ening the illness by inducing mania or instability. Our
study suggests that use of an antidepressant in conjunc-
tion with a mood stabilizer does not increase the risk of
mania. This is important because treatment options for
bipolar depression are urgently needed; patients with
bipolar disorder spend most of their time in depressive
episodes, and depressive symptoms are the leading cause
of impairment and morbidity in bipolar patients.