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Who Benefits from Electroconvulsive Therapy?

Combined Results of the Leicester and Northwick Park Trials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Heather Buchan
Affiliation:
Private Bag, Otago Area Health Board, Dunedin, New Zealand, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Oxford, Gibson Laboratories Building, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6UD
Eve Johnstone
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, formerly Division of Psychiatry, Northwick Park Hospital and Clinical Research Centre, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3 UJ
K. McPherson*
Affiliation:
Health Promotion Sciences Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, formerly Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Oxford, Gibson Laboratories Building, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6UD
R. L. Palmer
Affiliation:
University of Leicester and Leicester General Hospital
T. J. Crow
Affiliation:
Northwick Park Hospital and Clinical Research Centre, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ
S. Brandon
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
*
Correspondence

Abstract

This paper describes the results obtained by combining data from the Northwick Park and Leicester randomised controlled trials of ECT. Patients who suffered from depression in which retardation and delusions were features and who received real ECT had a significantly improved outcome at the end of four weeks of treatment (as measured by improvement in the HRSD) in comparison with those who received simulated ECT. However, this treatment effect was not detectable at six-month follow-up. Patients who were neither retarded nor deluded did not benefit significantly from real as opposed to simulated ECT.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

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References

Brandon, S., Cowley, P., McDonald, C., et al (1984) Electroconvulsive therapy: results in depressive illness from the Leicestershire trial. British Medical Journal, 288, 2225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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