This study is a retrospective analysis of the clinical use of ECT at a county hospital in Norway. Our aim was to determine the ECT- parameters, effect and side effects of patients that received ECT and compare standards of ECT practice with similar studies conducted elsewhere.

The study is based on data collected from specific ECT journals and the patients’ hospital journals. We investigated treatment characteristics, side effects (headache, memory problems and others), and effect which was measured as either present or not present. The number of necessary sessions before effect was achieved was also registered.

210 patients received ECT in the study period. The mean number of ECT treatments was 7.9. Bilateral electrode placement was used for 63.3%. The analyses suggest that a unilateral placing of electrodes tended to increase the average number of treatments compared to the bilateral placing of electrodes. The level of energy compared to the placement of electrodes seemed to indicate that unilateral treated received higher energy than those who had the bilateral placing of electrodes. We found that high stimulus dosage required shorter cramps. Common side effects included headache (N=86), retrograde amnesia (N=31) and others (N=17), no side effects (N=28), missing data (N=65).

82.2% of patients improved with treatment, 51.1% experienced improvement between treatment 4 and 7, 17.8% patients did not respond to the treatment, missing data 35.7%.

Our findings are mainly in concordance with previous reports of ECT use in public funded hospitals.