Electroconvul-sive Treatment and Concurrent Treatment with Psychopharmaceutical Pre-parations: Efficacy of Combination

Overview

The presented retrospective study was made in female patients in the admis-sion department of a mental hospital. Electroconvulsive treatment was givenin all instances bilaterally, by short-pulse stimulation using a Thymaron ap-paratus. The group included a total of 99 patients, mean age 47.38 ± 15.74years (range 17 - 82) with diagnoses of unipolar and bipolar depression,mania, schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia. The total number of ap-plied electroconvulsions (EC) was 663, the mean number per patient was 6.69± 2.24 (range 3 - 13 EC). The total number of electroconvulsions which couldbe evaluated was 657. After treatment the group included 77.7 % major res-ponders. The authors investigated the relationship of the class of pharmacot-herapeutic preparation (antidepressant, neuroleptic and benzodiazepines)and the therapeutic effect of electroconvulsive therapy. They found that ben-zodiazepines correlated significantly inversely with the improvement of CGIduring treatment (p = 0.021). The use of antidepressants and neuroleptics did not correlate significantly with the rate of onset of the first improvement norwith the total number of administered electroconvulsions.

Key words:
electroconvulsive therapy, therapeutic effect, psychophar-maceutical preparations, antidepressants, neuroleptics, benzodiazepines.