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ECT: a patient-friendly procedure?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Denise M. Riordan ,
Philip Barron  and
Melanie F. Bowden
Denise M. Riordan
Affiliation:
Prestwich Hospital, Manchester M25
Philip Barron
Affiliation:
St Luke's Hospital, Middlesbrough TS4 3AF
Melanie F. Bowden
Affiliation:
Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester M13
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Electroconvulsive therapy is widely seen by the public as a barbaric and outmoded form of treatment. Even within groups of health care professionals, ECT does not have a ‘good press’. Most research into the area of patient attitudes to ECT has been retrospective and often considerably so, and is therefore unlikely to illustrate patients' feelings about a course of treatment at the time it took place (Freeman & Kendell, 1980; Kerr et al, 1982). The only prospective study is that by Malcolm (1989). This showed a low level of understanding of treatment and a high level of anxiety both before treatment and afterwards, but, despite this, a high level of compliance with ECT therapy.

Our aim was to re-examine these findings in order to find a way of improving the experience of ECT.

Type
Original articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 9 , September 1993 , pp. 531 - 533
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

Baxter, L. R., Roy-Byrne, P., Liston, E. H. & Fairbanks, L. (1986) The experience of electroconvulsive therapy in the 1980's: A prospective study of the knowledge, opinions, and experience of California electroconvulsive therapy patients in the Berkeley years. Convulsive Therapy, 2, 179–189.Google Scholar
Freeman, C. P. L. & Kendell, R. E. (1980) ECT: I. Patients' experience and attitudes. British Journal of Psychiatry, 137, 8–16.Google Scholar
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Kerr, R. A., McGrath, J. J., O'Kearney, T. & Price, J. (1982) ECT: Misconceptions and attitudes. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 16, 43–49.Google Scholar
Malcolm, K. (1989) Patients' perceptions and knowledge of electroconvulsive therapy. Psychiatric Bulletin, 13, 161–165.Google Scholar
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