Am J Psychiatry 1978; 135:1476-1480
Copyright © 1978 by American Psychiatric Association
The incidence of psychosurgery in the United States, 1971--1973
J Donnelly
As part of the work of the APA Task Force on Psychosurgery, the author
surveyed 1,901 neurosurgeons on how many psychosurgical procedures they
performed in 1971, 1972 and 1973. A total of 1.481 questionnaires were
returned: 195 neurosurgeons indicated they had performed a total of 476
procedures for intractable pain and 1.039 procedures for psychiatric
conditions. Excluding the procedures reported by 4 neurosurgeons who
performed more than 20 psychosurgical operations in any one of the three
years, the number of psychosurgical operations in 575 for the three years,
which the author suggests should allay fears about the abuse of
psychosurgery.
