Rezaei Hakimeh, Woodham Rachel D, Ghazi-Noori Ali-Reza, Ritter Philipp, Bauer Michael, Young Allan H, Bramon Elvira, Fu Cynthia H Y
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Centre for Affective Disorders, Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
BMC Psychiatry. 2025 May 26;25(1):549. doi: 10.1186/s12888-025-06948-4.
Acceptability is a multifaceted concept that reflects how a treatment is viewed, which impacts patient engagement, adherence, and provider implementation. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is emerging as a novel non-invasive treatment for bipolar depression. We developed a home-based protocol for tDCS, which has demonstrated efficacy in unipolar and bipolar depression. We sought to explore the acceptability of home-based tDCS in bipolar depression.
Participants were 35 adults (26 women) with bipolar disorder (mean age 47.37 years, SD ± 13.78) in a current depressive episode of at least moderate severity. tDCS was provided in a bifrontal montage, 2 mA for 30 min each session, over 6 weeks with real-time supervision. Acceptability was assessed in a questionnaire and individual interviews, conducted at two timepoints: baseline and post treatment. Individual interviews were analysed by thematic analysis.
Six main themes were found: helpfulness, side effects, burden, gratitude, ethicality and comparison to medications. The themes of gratitude and comparison with medications were novel in this group compared to unipolar depression.
Themes reflected high acceptability of tDCS treatment in bipolar depression and indicated strong interest in novel treatments in this population. Qualitative analysis can provide novel insights into individual experiences, understand barriers to treatment, and offer guidance for improving clinical treatments.
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05436613 registered on 23 June 2022 https// www.
gov/study/NCT05436613 .
可接受性是一个多方面的概念，反映了对一种治疗方法的看法，这会影响患者的参与度、依从性以及医疗服务提供者的实施情况。经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）正成为一种治疗双相抑郁症的新型非侵入性疗法。我们开发了一种基于家庭的tDCS方案，该方案已在单相和双相抑郁症中显示出疗效。我们试图探讨基于家庭的tDCS在双相抑郁症中的可接受性。
参与者为35名成年人（26名女性），患有双相情感障碍（平均年龄47.37岁，标准差±13.78），目前处于至少中度严重程度的抑郁发作期。采用双侧额叶电极片进行tDCS治疗，每次2毫安，每次持续30分钟，为期6周，并进行实时监测。在两个时间点（基线和治疗后）通过问卷调查和个人访谈评估可接受性。通过主题分析对个人访谈进行分析。
发现了六个主要主题：帮助、副作用、负担、感激、伦理以及与药物的比较。与单相抑郁症相比，感激和与药物比较这两个主题在该组中是新颖的。
这些主题反映了tDCS治疗在双相抑郁症中的高可接受性，并表明该人群对新型治疗方法有浓厚兴趣。定性分析可以为个体经历提供新的见解，了解治疗障碍，并为改善临床治疗提供指导。
ClinicalTrials.gov：NCT05436613于2022年6月23日注册https// www.
gov/study/NCT05436613 。
