Andrade Chittaranjan, Thyagarajan Shivashanmugam
Department of Psychopharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
J ECT. 2007 Jun;23(2):75-7. doi: 10.1097/yct.0b013e31806545a1.
Attitudes toward a treatment influence the acceptability of the treatment. There has been no study of how attitudes toward electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are influenced by what ECT is called.
A sample of 125 laypersons was drawn from 3 social settings in Bangalore, India. A short, oral questionnaire was administered to determine the acceptability of ECT under 3 different names: 2 actual and 1 coined.
The acceptability of ECT was highest for the coined name electrostimulatory therapy (53%), intermediate for the occasionally used name electroshock therapy (38%), and least for the commonly used name electroconvulsive therapy (9%) (P < 0.001). Electrostimulatory therapy was the preferred choice because it was least associated with the likelihood of harm (P < 0.01).
How a treatment is presented may influence reactions to it and, hence, its acceptability. We therefore suggest that ECT is better described as electrostimulatory therapy than as electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock therapy. We further suggest that discussions on ECT should emphasize the stimulatory effects of the treatment and downplay parallels with epilepsy. In an age of political correctness, political correctness should be applied to the description of ECT.
对一种治疗方法的态度会影响该治疗方法的可接受性。目前尚无关于电休克治疗（ECT）的名称如何影响人们对其态度的研究。
从印度班加罗尔的3个社会环境中抽取了125名外行人作为样本。通过发放一份简短的口头调查问卷，以确定ECT在3个不同名称下的可接受性：2个实际使用的名称和1个编造的名称。
编造的名称“电刺激疗法”下ECT的可接受性最高（53%），偶尔使用的名称“电休克疗法”的可接受性处于中等水平（38%），而常用名称“电惊厥疗法”的可接受性最低（9%）（P < 0.001）。电刺激疗法是首选，因为它与伤害可能性的关联最小（P < 0.01）。
一种治疗方法的呈现方式可能会影响人们对它的反应，进而影响其可接受性。因此，我们建议将ECT描述为电刺激疗法比描述为电惊厥疗法或电休克疗法更好。我们还建议关于ECT的讨论应强调该治疗的刺激效果，并淡化与癫痫的关联。在一个讲究政治正确性的时代，政治正确性也应适用于ECT的描述。
