Open AccessIMPACT OF COVID-19 ON ECT PRACTICE IN QATAR
Author(s) -
Ovais Wadoo,
Shereen Mohammed Aly,
Javed Latoo,
Mahmoud Khalil Mahmoud Alshawwaf,
Sandesh Kamat,
Majid Alabdulla
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
psychiatria danubina
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1849-0867
pISSN - 0353-5053
DOI - 10.24869/psyd.2022.544
Subject(s) - covid-19 , electroconvulsive therapy , pandemic , medicine , psychiatry , health care , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , virology , outbreak , pathology , economics , economic growth
There is paucity of Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) utilization surveys from the Arabian Gulf region and none available from Qatar. There is no literature available on impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on ECT provision. ECT is a lifesaving treatment in psychiatric practice requiring anesthetic support and there were concerns that redeployment of anesthetists due to COVID-19 pandemic might have comparatively bigger impact on the provision of ECT. These concerns stem from the fact that psychiatric patients often get discriminated against in health care systems; largely due to stigma and the belief among healthcare providers that psychiatric illness is somehow not as serious as other types of medical or surgical illness. In this brief report we present pre-COVID ECT utilization from Qatar. We also report findings on ECT utilization during COVID-19 and compare changes with other elective and non-elective surgeries. ECT provision was down by 40% during March to August 2020 in our setting. The decline in ECT provision was comparable to other elective and non-elective surgeries.