Length of Acute ECT Course in Patients Who Screen Positive For Borderline Personality Disorder: New Data From The Harvard Group

 Out on PubMed, from the Harvard group, in JECT, is this study:

The Duration in Treatment With Electroconvulsive Therapy Among Patients Screening Positive or Negative for Borderline Personality Disorder Traits: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Luccarelli J, McCoy TH Jr, Yip AG, Seiner SJ, Henry ME.J ECT. 2022 Apr 4. doi: 10.1097/YCT.0000000000000847. Online ahead of print.PMID: 35389952

The abstract is copied below:


And from the text:

This is another interesting dataset from the Harvard group, dazzling mostly because of the large "n". The finding that patients who screen positive for BPD are more likely to receive at least 10 ECT, without lots of additional information, is hard to interpret, as the authors do point out. They choose to interpret it to mean good tolerability, and downplay the possibility that it signals more equivocal/slower response. In any case, the data are the data, and we are again indebted to Dr. Luccarelli for mining them.
I suspect most ECT practitioners will want to read this article in full, and carefully ponder the implications.


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