Is Conduct of Research in Electroconvulsive Therapy Ethical?

Controversy surrounding ECT creates skepticism about the ethics of conducting ECT research. This paper discusses the ethical conduct of clinical research and then focus on the ethics as applied to ECT.

PubMed was searched for articles related to the ethical conduct of research and that of ECT research published in English.

ECT research is ethically justified and should always continue to be conducted with the highest ethical standards. ECT research entails few ethical peculiarities such as involving multiple sessions were capacity to consent can change. It would be unethical not to conduct ECT research.

ECT research must be based on sound hypotheses in the presence of a clinical equipoise in well-designed studies. ECT studies must select a fair and non-biased sample of participants. It is important that participants represent the broad population of the people that would be receiving ECT for that specific indication. ECT research is ethical; and more research in this field could help decrease stigma and barriers to treatment, and/or reduce side effects and improve efficacy of a potentially life-saving intervention.