The Practice of Electroconvulsive Therapy: Recommendations for Treatment Training and Privileging : A Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric

Provides a basic set of recommendations to assist practitioners and facilities in the safe and effective use of electroconvulsive therapy. The text analyzes ethical and legal issues, illnesses and situations for which this therapy is important, side effects and necessary equipment.

Since the development of pharmacoconvulsive therapy in 1934 and of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in 1938, ECT has proven far more valuable than just the intervention of last resort.

The findings of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Task Force on ECT were published by the APA in 1990 as the first edition of The Practice of Electroconvulsive Therapy, encouraging the development of ECT guidelines by groups both within the United States and internationally. Since then, advances in the use of this treatment, coupled with a huge increase in the number of publications about ECT, prompted the APA to mandate a second edition.

The updated format and content of this second edition make it a remarkably practical guide for the safe and effective use of ECT. Its chapters closely integrate recommendations with their justifications, making the material easy to read, understand, and use. Its content presents a comprehensive overview of the clinical practice of ECT without sacrificing depth and breadth. Topics include everything from indications for use of ECT to patient evaluation, side effects, concurrent medications, consent procedures (with sample consents forms and patient information booklet), staffing, treatment administration, monitoring of outcome, management of patients following ECT and documentation, as well as education and clinical privileging.

Complemented by extensive annotations (the second edition's bibliography contains more than four times the original number of citations) and useful appendixes, this comprehensive yet practical overview will prove invaluable to practitioners and trainees in psychiatry and related disciplines.