Why the study?
Do benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants impact the clinical outcomes of electroconvulsive therapy?
Do benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants impact the clinical outcomes of electroconvulsive therapy?
Benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants appear to have less impact on ECT clinical outcomes than expected, though significant literature gaps remain.
Clinicians should not routinely withhold benzodiazepines or anticonvulsants before ECT; prospective trials needed to guide practice.
Judicious assessment of all medications used in combination with ECT is recommended. Overall, published studies suggest that benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants impact the clinical outcomes of ECT less than what would be expected given their pharmacologic effects. However, there are significant gaps in the literature, including a lack of study on suprathreshold stimulation of right unilateral ECT and the possibility of a greater effect with higher medication doses.
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Tang et al. (2017) studied this question.
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