Developing an outpatient electroconvulsive therapy program: a nursing perspective

The increasing awareness that patients can be stabilized on maintenance electroconvulsive therapy (MECT) has led to the development of outpatient ECT programs. Just as ongoing dialysis treatments serve the renal patient, so do index and maintenance courses of ECT serve the patient with certain psychiatric illnesses. The planning and development of an outpatient ECT program is crucial. Nurses, physicians, and hospital administrators must carefully coordinate their efforts in order for the program to be viable. Such programs must be consumer-oriented and place the patients and families first, in order to meet their needs and the demands of the many restrictions generated by health care reform.