Patients' and Their Relatives' Attitudes Toward Electroconvulsive Therapy in Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

Although electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a safe and efficacious treatment, there is a widespread negative view of ECT in public and professional circles. Previous studies that reported psychiatric patients' and their relatives' feelings and attitudes toward ECT revealed generally positive results. However, there are no data focusing on bipolar patients' and their relatives' attitudes toward ECT. In this study, the perspectives of 70 bipolar patients and their 70 relatives were examined before ECT. The study showed that the majority of patients and relatives believed they had not received adequate information about ECT, but they were satisfied with the treatment, found it beneficial, and maintained a positive attitude toward its use. The most commonly reported side effect was memory impairment. This is the first study focusing on bipolar patients' and their relatives' attitudes toward ECT in the literature.

Knowledge and Attitudes of Patients and Their Relatives Toward Electroconvulsive Therapy in China

“…In this study, nearly 60% of relatives and 42% of patients were given information prior to ECT. This figure for relatives is comparable to those reported from Turkey (51.4% in relatives and 32.7% in patients, respectively; Virit et al., ) and Hong Kong (58.6% in relatives and 19.8% in patients, respectively; Tang et al., ) with similar questionnaires. The higher rate of informed patients in this study may be due to the newly released national mental health law in China which came into effect in 2013.…”

“…A separate 6‐item questionnaire was designed to collect data on adverse effects of ECT reported by patients (Table ). The questionnaires above are based on the instruments used previously (Tang et al., ; Virit, Ayar, Savas, Yumru, & Selek, ), taking into account the sociocultural factors and issues related to the practice of ECT in China. Responses for each item on the questionnaires were “agree/yes,” “disagree/no,” and “I don't know.” All assessments were conducted at 3–4 weeks after the patients' last ECT session.…”

Electroconvulsive therapy in children and adolescents

“…A survey led by Malekian and colleagues in Iran found that patients' attitudes towards ECT became more positive after completion of ECT courses, independent of treatment outcome [106]. Similar results were found in a sample of bipolar patients and their families in Turkey [107]. If anything, these results indicate that individuals who have been exposed to ECT, either as patients or as family members of a patient receiving ECT, tend to have more positive opinions of the treatment.…”

Electroconvulsive therapy: A review of knowledge, experience and attitudes of patients concerning the treatment

“…Apart from memory impairment, other adverse effects of ECT were reported by patients in 15 studies (Vergese et al 1968;Gomez 1975;Freeman and Kendell 1980;Malcolm 1989;Riordan et al 1993;Tharyan et al 1993;Ishimoto et al 2000;Taieb et al 2001;Tang et al;Benbow and Crentsil 2004;Philpot et al 2004;Rush et al 2007;Virit et al 2007;Malekian et al 2009). Other common side effects following ECT included muscle aches and pains (1-94%), confusion (20-65%), headache (1-55%) and nausea or vomiting (0.5-25%).…”

“…Recall of information seemed to worsen with longer courses and greater number of treatments (Greening et al 1999). Moreover, some of these studies had also reported that relatives were much more likely than patients to believe that they had received adequate information Tang et al 2002;Rajkumar et al 2006;Virit et al 2007;Rajagopal 2008). This again raises the possibility that patients might have forgotten some of what was explained prior to treatment, due to post-ECT memory loss.…”