Diagnostic variability and therapeutic efficacy of ECT in Nepalese sample

Though electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been used in Nepal for last twenty years, researches regarding its use, its efficacy and other data are non-existent.

The objective of this study was to know about diagnostic variability and therapeutic efficacy of the use of ECT in hospitalized patients.

This is a prospective comparative study between patients who received ECT and who did not using ICD-10 as diagnostic confirmation. Psychopathology was evaluated using Brief Psychiatric Research Scale (BPRS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) between the groups at admission, at discharge, at 1st month, at 6th month and at 12th month. Functional assessment of patients was done using Global Assessment of Function (GAF). Modified ECT was performed using general anaesthetic agent.

47 patients received ECT as compared to 78 patients who were non-receivers. The patients with most common five diagnosis were paranoid schizophrenia (14.4%); psychotic depression (13.6%) ; undifferentiated schizophrenia (8.8%) ; bipolar mania (7.2% ) ;severe depression without psychosis (5.6%) . There was significant decrease in BPRS in ECT receiver as compared to non-receivers at discharge (p=0.0001), 1st month (p=0.0001), 6th month (p=0.0001) and 12th month (p=0.0001) ; in YMRS at discharge (p=.008), 1st month (p=.002) and at 12th month (p=.015) ; in HAMD-M at discharge (p=0.0001), at 1st month (p=0.0001), at 6th month (p=0.0001) and at 12th month (p=0.0001) ; in GAF at discharge (p=0.0001), at 6th month (p=0.0001) and at 12th month (p=0.0001).

There was significant improvement in overall psychopathology of patients who received ECT as compared to non-receivers. The improvement was shown by decrement in scores in BPRS, YMRS, HDRS and GAF at the time of discharge, 1st month, 6th month and 12th month which were statistically significant. Day to day functional status of patients also improved as shown by GAF. The efficacy of ECT was very significantly shown in this study with all the psychiatric spectrum disorders.