Practice Guidelines Project Invites Your Input

A workshop at APA's 2008 annual meeting sponsored by the Steering Committee on Practice Guidelines will give participants the opportunity to learn about and comment on in-progress revisions to APA's Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients With Major Depressive Disorder (second edition, published in 2000). The workshop also will present and field questions about APA's Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients with Bipolar Disorder (second edition, published in 2002). The third editions of both guidelines are slated to be published in 2009.

The workshop will take place on Wednesday, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in Room 156, Level 1, in the Washington Convention Center. It will be moderated by John McIntyre, M.D., chair of APA's Steering Committee on Practice Guidelines. Speakers will include Alan J.Gelenberg, M.D., chair of the work group revising the depression guideline; Robert M.A. Hirschfield, M.D., chair of the work group revising the bipolar guideline; and Laura J. Fochtmann, M.D., medical editor for the APA practice guidelines project.

APA practice guidelines prov ide treatment recommendations that are based on available evidence from clinical trials and expert consensus. The guidelines are developed using an explicit process that includes a systematic review of the scientific literature by an expert work group, broad literative review of drafts by other experts and the APA membership, and final approval by the APA Assembly and Board of Trustees. Workshop participants will learn how to submit comments on draft versions of the depression and bipolar guidelines.

In 2007 APA approved and published two practice guidelines: Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (first edition) and Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients With Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias (second edition).

These and other APA practice guidelines can be accessed online free at<www.psych.org/MainMenu/PsychiatricPractice/PracticeGuidelines_1.aspx>.American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, Compendium 2006can be ordered from American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. at<www.appi.org/book.cfm?id=2383>.▪