TRATAMENTO DA DEPRESSÃO COM ELETROCONVULSOTERAPIA (ECT) / ELETROCHOQUE: UMA REVISÃO SISTEMÁTICA DA LITERATURA

Abstract

 Introduction: As it is known, depression is considered a serious public health problem, as it produces very negative impacts on the patient's life and also on the whole family, thus compromising the various personal, social and labor aspects. There are several types of treatment, including medication, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) or also known as Electroshock. ECT encompasses the induction of a seizure for therapeutic purposes from the administration of a variable frequency electrical stimulus shock. The latter, and also the object of study, has been stigmatized for a long time. Objective: To verify through a systematic review the importance and efficiency of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) in the treatment of Depression. Methods: This is a systematic literature review, in which the following steps were analyzed: identification of the research question, literature search, categorization of studies, evaluation of studies, interpretation of results and synthesis of knowledge. The National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health (MEDLINE) database was chosen, accessed through the PubMed system. The search strategy used the following keyword combinations: The search strategy used the following keyword combinations: “Depression”; “Electroconvulsive therapy”; “Electroshock”; “Strategies”; “Psychiatry””. Results: The scope of this review included 10 articles that showed an intrinsic relationship in their results regarding the effectiveness of ECT in the treatment of depression. Conclusion: Despite the limitations found (minimal number of articles found in the current language that encompassed the descriptors), it was concluded that depression is a public health problem and affects, even, major depressive disorder (MDD) is already considered one of the main disabling diseases of the world, affecting approximately 350 million people. It was further concluded to be a very effective treatment option and should be available to selected patients.