July 12, 2021 (Toronto) – Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a medically safe mental health intervention, according to a new study led by CAMH researcher Dr. Tyler Kaster as part of his doctoral studies at ICES and the University of Toronto. The study was published today in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry, and is among the largest and most comprehensive to compare the safety of ECT with standard treatment amongst individuals with depression.
Multiple studies over a period of decades have confirmed the effectiveness of ECT as a mental health intervention for people with treatment-resistant depression. Up to 80 per cent of people with severe depression who receive ECT achieve remission. However, despite this success rate, only one per cent of people with severe depression ever receive ECT, likely due to concerns about side effects of ECT such as cognitive and medical complications.
This study, entitled Risk of serious medical events in patients with depression treated with electroconvulsive therapy: a propensity score-matched, retrospective cohort study, looked at the psychiatric records of over 10,000 patients in Ontario whose depression was serious enough to require at least three days of hospitalization, and compared the risk of medical hospitalisation or death within 30 days for patients who had ECT compared to patients who did not. It concludes that, “among individuals hospitalized with depression, there is not a clinically significant increased risk for serious medical events with exposure to ECT while the risk of suicide appears to be significantly reduced. The benefits of ECT on depression outcomes may outweigh its risks in this population.”
“ECT is the single most effective treatment we have in psychiatry for depression,” said lead author CAMH Psychiatrist Dr. Tyler Kaster, who treats ECT patients at the CAMH Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Stimulation. “But prejudice and discrimination around the treatment is enormous in terms of preventing people from accessing it.”