Concurrent psychotropic medication has no negative influence on the outcome of electroconvulsive therapy.

A consecutive cohort of 66 subjects receiving ECT in a period of a year were studied retrospectively in order to ascertain whether concurrent psychotropic medication affected negatively their response to ECT. No correlation was found between any drug variable and any outcome variable. It is concluded that a preliminary negative result of this nature suggests that there may not be such a negative effect, but that this must be confirmed by a prospective study; it is also cautioned that, to undertake such, current ethical and legal issues may need to be resolved.