Knowledge and attitude of the families with a mental patient about the‏ ‏electroconvulsive therapy at the Ebn-e- Sina psychiatric center of Mashhad

Electroconvulsive therapy is the most common and also unique method in ‎psychiatry that is used for treatment of many mental disorders such as major depression, ‎schizophrenia and etc. Despite of safety and usefulness of this method, the patients and ‎families have a great deal of stress about it. This stressful approach caused negative attitudes ‎and difficulties in treatment and following up care .Since reactions of the patients and their ‎families can be effective for reforming the medical programs, so considering their knowledge, ‎opinion, experiences and attitudes about ECT is very important.‎

The goal was to determine the knowledge and attitude of the mental patients, ‎families about the electroconvulsive therapy at the Ebn-e- Sina psychiatry center of Mashad

This research is a descriptive study and its samples consist of ‎‏71‏member of the ‎families whose patients previously experienced ECT at least once. The means for collecting ‎data was a questionnaire, which was filled by the researcher through structured interviewing ‎in three sections including demographic data, knowledge questions and attitudes questions. ‎For data analysis, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistic(x‏2‏‎, ‎spearman correlation coefficient) were used.

Findings totally showed that most of members (‎‏71/8%‏‎) had a poor knowledge and ‎‏70/4%‏‎ of them had a negative attitude about ECT. The result also indicated a significant ‎statistical relation between knowledge about ECT with level of education (P<‎‏0/0001‏‎), ‎hospitalization (p<‎‏0/034‏‎) and times of getting (p<‎‏0/016‏‎). Furthermore the attitudes toward ‎ECT had a significant statistical relation with hospitalization (p<‎‏0/002‏‎) and times of getting ‎‎(p<‎‏0/001‏‎). The obtained results showed no significant statistical relation between knowledge ‎about ECT and attitudes toward ECT with other demographic variables. Spearman correlation ‎coefficient test obtained a right correlation and a significant statistical relation between ‎knowledge about ECT and attitudes toward it (p<‎‏0‏‎/‎‏001‏‎, r=‎‏0/78‏‎).‎

These findings indicated that the participants have a low level knowledge and a ‎negative attitude about ECT. Furthermore, there was more knowledge if the level of ‎education had been Higher, and the member of families whose patient had been hospitalized ‎more and more received more ECT, had a higher knowledge and positive attitude about ECT.‎