Declining use of electroconvulsive therapy in United States general hospitals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Falling duration of psychiatric inpatient stays over the past 2 decades and recent recommendations to tighten federal regulation of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) devices have focused attention on trends in ECT use, but current national data have been unavailable.

Methods

We calculated the annual number of inpatient stays involving ECT and proportion of general hospitals conducting the procedure at least once in the calendar year with a national sample of discharges from 1993 to 2009. We estimated adjusted probabilities that inpatients with severe recurrent major depression (n = 465,646) were treated in a hospital that conducts ECT and, if so, received the procedure.

Results

The annual number of stays involving ECT fell from 12.6 to 7.2/100,000 adult US re

SUBMITTER: Case BG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5375110 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature