A Survey of 1144 ECT Recipients, Family Members and Friends: Does ECT Work?
John Read, Lucy Johnstone, Sarah Price Hancock and 3 others
PMID 40785132WHAT IT FOUND
58.5% of ECT recipients and 60.1% of family/friends reported ECT was not at all helpful; 62.3% of recipients reported worse quality of life, while 41.0% reported better mood.
Key findings
01Some reported benefit: 44.5% of ECT recipients and 45.1% of family/friends said the problem for which ECT was given improved to some extent.
02But most reported no overall benefit: 58.5% of ECT recipients and 60.1% of family/friends said ECT was not at all helpful.
03Most also reported worse quality of life: 62.3% of ECT recipients and 61.0% of family/friends said ECT made overall quality of life worse.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Participants reported from memory after ECT, and the survey used self-reports rather than validated outcome measures. The questionnaire was not construct validated, psychometrically evaluated or pilot tested beyond feedback from a mental health charity. Responses came from an online survey in English, without translations, and recruitment was mainly from English-speaking countries in North America, Europe and Australasia. The sample may have been biased: people who died, had severe cognitive damage, or found ECT unhelpful may not have responded, while researchers who have critiqued ECT may have attracted more negative respondents. Family/friends were reporting on someone else's experience, and some family/friend subgroups were too small for analysis. The survey had no control group, sham comparison or blinded assessment, so these reports cannot show whether ECT caused the outcomes.
Declared interests
John Read has been a paid expert witness in several ECT legal cases in the USA and Canada. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these patient and family reports as proof that ECT causes worse outcomes or does not work for any patient. The survey used self-reports without a control group, validated outcome measures, or blinded assessment, and the authors note possible sample bias in both directions.