An Evaluation of Electroplexy (E.C.T.) Techniques

Abstract

The court hearing (Bolam v. Friern Hospital Management Committee) showed that British psychiatrists disagreed about the best technique of administering electroplexy. The implications of this were discussed in a recent communication (1), which also contained an extensive review of the literature showing a similar disagreement amongst previous authorities. In order to ascertain which E.C.T. techniques were most widely practised in this country, a questionnaire was circulated to a number of mental and teaching hospitals and the results of this, which were reported in full (1, 3), are summarized in Table I.