Estancia media hospitalaria y tratamiento con terapia electroconvulsiva.

INTRODUCTION: The objective is to analyze if the mean hospital stay is less than the episodes or not in which electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is applied. METHODS: With a retrospective design, we studied a sample of 30 patients in whom ECT was applied between 1996 and 2001. These patients were suffering a disorder for which ECT has been shown to be effective (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression). Each one of the episodes (n = 185) of these patients was studied, comparing the length of stay in the hospital in these patients in which ECT was applied (n = 135) with those where it was not (n = 50). Statistical analysis was carried out by non-parametric Mann-Whitney-U tests. The descriptive level of statistical significance was established at p < 0.05. RESULTS: This work shows statistically significant differences between the treatment groups (p = 0.000), the length of stay being longer when ECT is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]