Bipolar disease type I has an estimated prevalence of 1% in the general population. Approximately 50% of first episodes are of the manic type. In the last decades, there have been major advances in the understanding of the disease and its psychopharmacological treatment, namely through the usage of anti-psychotics (both typical and atypical), mood stabilizers and anxiolitics.

To study the farmacological treatment of acute mania in Hospital Miguel Bombarda over the last 20 years.

Data retrieval from the clinical files of the patients admitted for bipolar disease, manic type, and its sociodemografic caractherization. Study of the farmacotherapy used in a sample of the first 30 clinical admissions due to the illness over 20 years, with intervals of 5 years. (1986, 1991, 1996, 2006)

There has been an overall increasing rate of admissions due to bipolar disease, manic type over the last 20 years. This evolution is depicted graphically.

Anti-psychotics were the class of therapeutic agents most comonly used, especially haloperidol. In the last years, there has been a slow but steady increase in the usage of mood stabilizers; however, atypics lagged behind in the prescriptions habits for bipolar disease, manic type in the sample studied.