International Society for Bipolar Disorders
Encyclopedia
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, USA, where it was founded June 17, 1999 http://www.isbd.org/edcenter/aboutisbd.asp. The society focuses on research and education in bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
s.
The Society has a membership consisting of mental health professional
Mental health professional
A mental health professional is a health care practitioner who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental illness. This broad category includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, mental health...
s, patients and their family members representing 50 countries. The mission of the Society is to advance the treatment of all aspects of bipolar disorder, thereby improving patient outcomes and quality of life, through fostering international collaboration in education and research. The Society hosts biennial professional meetings and offers educational programs. The Society journal is Bipolar Disorders: An International Journal of Psychiatry and Neurosciences.
History
ISBD was launched at the 3rd International Conference on Bipolar Disorder, in PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, USA in June 1999 by David J. Kupfer and Thomas Detre of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is an $9 billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 54,000 employees, 20 hospitals, 4,200 licensed beds, 400 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices, a 1.5 million-member health insurance division, as well as commercial and...
. In September 1999, the official peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
ed Society journal, Bipolar Disorders: An International Journal of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, published its first issue. In 2000, Bipolar Disorders was first tracked by the Institute for Scientific Information
Institute for Scientific Information
The Institute for Scientific Information was founded by Eugene Garfield in 1960. It was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, became known as Thomson ISI and now is part of the Healthcare & Science business of the multi-billion dollar Thomson Reuters Corporation.ISI offered...
(ISI), and in 2001 MEDLINE
MEDLINE
MEDLINE is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and health care...
and Index medicus
Index medicus
Index Medicus is a comprehensive index of medical scientific journal articles, published since 1879. It was initiated by John Shaw Billings, head of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, United States Army...
began indexing the journal's content. In 2005, the journal was rated 11th out of 94 peer-reviewed psychiatric journals with an impact factor of over 4.8.
The ISBD held its first meeting in Sydney, Australia in February 2004 with over 400 delegates in attendance. The Society held its second meeting in August 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland with over 600 attendees.
The Society has over 725 members in 50 countries with an elected board representing 10 countries.
Officers
President: Mauricio Tohen;Vice-President for Research: Sophia Frangou
Sophia Frangou
Sophia Frangou is Reader in Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London where she heads the Neurobiology of Psychosis section. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the European Psychiatric Association and Vice-President for Research of the...
;
Vice-Presidence for Governance: Aysegul Ozerdem;
Vice-President for Global Outreach: Kyoosoeb Ha; Secretary and Treasurer: Ihsan Salloum
Educational programs
- The Psychiatric Trainee Support program offers psychiatric trainees a free two-year membership in the Society in order to enhance knowledge of bipolar disorder among this group, narrow the gap between bipolar research and clinical practice, and ultimately to improve diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for patients with bipolar disorder. These supported memberships are open to psychiatric residents, postgraduate students and junior faculty up to the Assistant Professor or equivalent level with less than five years as faculty in their career trajectory. The programs seek to support 70% of trainees from developing countries.
- The Samuel Gershon Awards for Junior Investigators, named in honor of Dr. Samuel Gershon, past ISBD President and pioneer of early lithiumLithiumLithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...
research, offer four awards for original research submissions. Awards are based on the originality of the content, as well as the significance of the findings reported, and are evaluated by an international scientific panel under the auspices of the ISBD. These awards are open to psychiatric trainees, postgraduate students and junior faculty up to the Assistant Professor rank from around the world. The awards are presented in conjunction with the Society’s biennial meeting where the winners present their research in a special session showcasing the work of junior people in the field. - The ISBD Research Fellowship for Junior Investigators provides an opportunity for the recipient to travel to another facility to get training in a particular type of research methodology (i.e. brain imaging, genetics, clinical trials, etc.). The Fellowship is intended to cover up to 6 months support for salary, travel, or some combination of these costs as they are incurred in pursuit of additional training. This could take the form of summer programs, participation in smaller prospective studies, or through some other opportunity.
Conferences
The third biennial Conference of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders was held in India in January 2008. Future conferences will be held in São Paulo, Brazil in 2010 and Istanbul, Turkey in 2012. The conference provides updates on topics such as epidemiologyEpidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, pharmacotherapy, psychotherapies, genetics and neurobiology, imaging research, and bipolar disorder in special populations. The meeting serves as a forum for the ISBD membership meeting and a venue for the Society’s awards presentations.
Educational resources for members
The ISBD Global is the quarterly newsletter of the ISBD. The Global features Society updates, a calendar of events, book reviews, regional chapter updates and events, original research of ISBD trainees, and original articles by ISBD members.Bipolar Disorders – An International Journal of Psychiatric and Neurosciences is the official journal of the Society.
Bipolar Disorders: Understanding the Full Spectrum is an educational video released in 2003 by the ISBD. The piece includes interviews with patients, their families, and medical professionals. An updated version was released on DVD in late fall 2007.
The Neurocognition task force of the ISBD has developed recommendations for a cognitive test battery (BANC) for use in Bipolar Research both for clinical and research purposes. The task force included Lakshmi N Yatham, Ivan J Torres, Gin S Malhi, Sophia Frangou
Sophia Frangou
Sophia Frangou is Reader in Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London where she heads the Neurobiology of Psychosis section. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the European Psychiatric Association and Vice-President for Research of the...
, David C Glahn, Carrie E Bearden, Katherine E Burdick, Anabel Martínez-Arán, Sandra Dittmann, Joseph F Goldberg, Aysegul Ozerdem, Omer Aydemir, K N Roy Chengappa. The battery has been published in Bipolar Disorders (abstract)