Arshad Mehreen, Arham Ahmad Zafir, Arif Mansoor, Bano Maria, Bashir Ayisha, Bokutz Munira, Choudhary Maria Maqbool, Naqvi Haider, Khan Murad Moosa
Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
BMC Psychiatry. 2007 Jun 21;7:27. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-7-27.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is shown to be effective in many psychiatric illnesses, but its distorted projection by the Pakistani media and its unregulated use by many physicians across the country have adversely affected its acceptability. Given this situation we aimed to assess the awareness and perceptions regarding ECT as a treatment modality among the psychiatric patients.
This was a questionnaire based cross-sectional study carried out at 2 tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan.
We interviewed 190 patients of which 140 were aware of ECT. The study showed that the level of education had a significant impact on the awareness of ECT (p = 0.009). The most common source of awareness was electronic and print media (38%), followed by relatives (24%) and doctors (23%). Physical injuries (42%) and neurological (12%) and cognitive disturbances (11%) were the commonly feared side effects. The most popular belief about ECT was that it was a treatment of last resort (56%). Thirty-nine percent thought that ECT could lead to severe mental and physical illness and 37% considered it inhumane. Patients' willingness to receive ECT was dependant on whether or not they were convinced of its safety (p = 0.001) and efficacy (p = 0.0001).
We identified a serious lack of dissemination of information regarding ECT by the psychiatrists and the mental health care providers. This may be the result of an inadequate postgraduate training in Pakistan or just a lack of concern about the mentally ill patients. The media seemed to be the major source of information for our patients. We also saw the prevalence of a variety of myths regarding ECT in our society, which we feel may be responsible for the patients' adverse attitudes. Given the widespread applicability of ECT there is a dire need to dispel these misconceptions and improve its acceptability.
电休克治疗（ECT）在许多精神疾病中显示出有效性，但巴基斯坦媒体对其的歪曲报道以及该国许多医生的无规范使用对其可接受性产生了不利影响。鉴于这种情况，我们旨在评估精神科患者对ECT作为一种治疗方式的认知和看法。
这是一项在巴基斯坦卡拉奇的两家三级护理医院进行的基于问卷调查的横断面研究。
我们采访了190名患者，其中140人知晓ECT。研究表明，教育程度对ECT的认知有显著影响（p = 0.009）。最常见的认知来源是电子和印刷媒体（38%），其次是亲属（24%）和医生（23%）。身体损伤（42%）以及神经和认知障碍（12%和11%）是常见的令人恐惧的副作用。关于ECT最普遍的看法是它是最后的治疗手段（56%）。39%的人认为ECT会导致严重的精神和身体疾病，37%的人认为它不人道。患者接受ECT的意愿取决于他们是否相信其安全性（p = 0.001）和有效性（p = 0.0001）。
我们发现精神科医生和精神卫生保健提供者在ECT信息传播方面严重不足。这可能是巴基斯坦研究生培训不足的结果，或者仅仅是对精神病患者缺乏关注。媒体似乎是我们患者的主要信息来源。我们还看到社会上存在各种关于ECT的误解，我们认为这可能是患者产生负面态度的原因。鉴于ECT的广泛适用性，迫切需要消除这些误解并提高其可接受性。
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