Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) remains a highly controversial treatment. It involves administering an electric shock to the brain to induce a seizure, with the intention of alleviating mental health conditions, including depression. A typical series involves about ten treatments.
ECT advocates present it as safe. But a newly published analysis of research studies has calculated that the probability of ECT causing a major cardiac event is “between 1 in 15 and 1 in 30 patients” and found that “these cardiac events are a major cause of ECT-related deaths”.
Read, J. (2024). ‘Major Adverse Cardiac Events and Mortality Associated with Electroconvulsive Therapy: Correcting and Updating a 2019 Meta-analysis’.
Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Sept. DOI:10.1891/EHPP-2024-0003
https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrehpp/early/2024/09/01/ehpp-2024-0003
The analysis included six cardiac events: myocardial infarction, life-threatening arrhythmia, acute pulmonary edema, pulmonary embolism, acute heart failure, and cardiac arrest.
The author, Dr John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London:
“ECT proponents often characterise these heart attacks and other cardiac events as rare and inconsequential. But the electricity and the artificially induced seizure repeatedly place the heart under considerable pressure. Patients and their families have a right to be told of the risks involved.”
Lisa Morrison, who has had multiple series of ECT, and now runs a Belfast training consultancy:
‘I was never once told anything about the risk of heart complications, or about the other risks such as long -term memory loss. How could I make an informed choice if I was not informed? Our research* has shown that information leaflets across the UK routinely fail to properly inform patients and families about the risks of ECT, including adverse cardiac events, and mortality.”
The analysis concludes:
‘The ethical principle of informed consent is being routinely breached by ECT psychiatrists’.
Read and Morrison are part of a research team conducting the first ever online international survey of ECT patients and their families about the benefits and risks of ECT. It has received over 1,100 responses from 42 countries, and
*READ, J., MORRISON, L., HARROP, P. (2023). An independent audit of Electroconvulsive Therapy patient information leaflets in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 96, 885-901.
HARROP, C., READ, J., GEEKIE, J., RENTON, J. (2021). How accurate are ECT patient information leaflets provided by mental health services in England and the Royal College of Psychiatrists? An independent audit. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 23, 5-24