Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:1025-1029
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Reduced length and cost of hospital stay for major depression in patients treated with ECT
J Markowitz, R Brown, J Sweeney and JJ Mann
To investigate the effect of treatment modality on length of hospital stay,
the authors retrospectively studied 86 admissions of 74 patients with major
depression. All 19 patients who received ECT recovered, in contrast to only
27 (49%) of 55 patients given tricyclic antidepressants or other
medication. The 28 patients who had not responded to antidepressants
recovered after treatment with ECT. Treatment modality had a highly
significant effect on length of hospital stay: patients given ECT stayed a
mean of 13 fewer days, saving more than $6,400 per patient at current
rates. These findings of significant economic and therapeutic benefits in
the use of ECT raise issues about treatment selection for depressed
inpatients.
