Adverse effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for mood disorders
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Key message
The aim of this paper was to give a brief summary of systematic reviews of adverse effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for people with mood disorders. Systematic literature searches in five international scientific databases identified 327 references after we had removed duplicates. Of these, nine systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. After excluding three reports with inadequate methodological quality, and three overlapping reviews, we were left with three systematic reviews that were included in the summary. They could not document long-term adverse effects such as increased mortality, impaired cognitive functioning and general side effects.