[Safety in general anesthesia for ambulatory electroconvulsive therapy].

Background: Ambulatory electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is prevailing nowadays because of its lower cost and less disruption of the patient's social activity. We evaluated the safety and recovery profiles of general anesthesia for acute-phase or continuation/maintenance ambulatory ECT.

Methods: Forty outpatients with a mean age of 56 years for the management of mental disorders were reviewed. A total of 762 bilateral ECT procedures were performed under general anesthesia using propofol/ thiopental/sevoflurane and suxamethonium.

Results: During anesthesia, hypertension and tachycardia occurred in 281 (37%) and 214 procedures (28%), respectively. During post-anesthesia care unit stay, the medication most used was oxygen in 161 procedures (21%), and confusion and headache occurred in 54 procedures (7%) and 39 procedures (5%), respectively. No patients required unplanned hospital admission. Mean stay time in the day surgery unit was 172 min. Two ECT treatments (0.3%) in 2 patients needed unplanned return to our hospital within 24 hr after ECT due to worsening of their psychiatric conditions.

Conclusions: General anesthesia for ambulatory ECT with our protocol was proven to be safe without causing serious complications.