Maintenance ECT in Recurrent Depression and Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia

Abstract

Objective:Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been used for treatment of depression and psychosis for a long time. A less known way of use is as a maintenance treatment for keeping patients stable during remission. Recently ECT has been increasingly used for schizophrenia and depression after remission of the acute exacerbation.Methods:In this study, we examined files of 24 patients diagnosed as having treatment-resistant schizophrenia (14) or recurrent depression (10) who were treated with ECT on an outpatient basis.Results:Patients with depression and schizophrenia were followed up for minimum 2 months and maximum 54 months with ECT. The remission rate in both groups were 70%. None of the patients quitted treatment due to adverse effects.Conclusion:Biases and stigmatization cause a decreased rate of use of ECT in outpatient settings. However, the literature indicates that the morbidity and morbidity due to ECT are negligible. Although our data were collected retrospectively, they showed that ECT might be an option for a maintenance or continuation treatment of recurrent depression and treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Our findings should be supported by randomized studies.

Keywords

• ect
• maintenance
• recurrent depressive disorder
• treatment resistant schizophrenia