[Ethical questions in the clinical use and research of electroconvulsive therapy]

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of psychiatry's most long-standing and criticized treatments. Some of the criticisms come from the ethical aspect of ECT. The authors review the ethical issues of clinical application and research of ECT. ECT in the treatment of psychiatric patients is considered ethical, if it is conducted according to the four main principles of bioethics (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice). ECT research should also comply with other international guidelines and research ethics codes. In recent decades, the principle of informed consent has become widespread in psychiatry, which requires objective information from the attending doctor according to the most reliable scientific information. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities considers psychiatric disorders to be part of the concept of disability. For disabled psychiatric patients, assisted decision-making is a desirable way of self-determination. In doing so, it is important to use decision support instead of decision-substituting mechanisms, although for patients lacking insight, decisionsubstituting mechanisms are unavoidable.