Background
Increased demands on healthcare systems during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have caused major disruptions in the provision of services [
1‐
3]. These interruptions have occurred worldwide and in large quantities, influencing primary and palliative care, surgeries, and mental health services [
1]. Consequences of the pandemic, including lack of resources, shortages of healthcare workers, increased risk of infection, and decreased hospital bed capacity, have also required decision-makers to re-evaluate the necessity of certain “essential” services [
2]. As such, more benign services have been terminated or postponed at higher rates than other procedures or treatments [
4].
In Canada, one such procedure that was deemed non-essential is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) [
5]. ECT is an essential and life-saving treatment for patients with severe psychiatric illness, such as treatment-resistant depression, psychosis, catatonia, and suicidality [
6‐
13]. In certain treatment-resistant cases, ECT is the only viable option, and it is also widely used as a maintenance therapy to prevent relapse [
7,
8,
14,
15]. Nevertheless, certain hospital decision-makers viewed the procedure as elective during the COVID-19 pandemic [
7,
15,
16], with significant disruptions in its provision leaving vulnerable individuals at increased risk of symptom exacerbation and death by suicide [
7,
15,
17,
18].
The provision of ECT incurs risks that other procedures may not have [
7,
18]. Several concerns arose regarding the transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus during treatment [
1,
14], as certain procedural characteristics of ECT, such as the use of bag-valve-mask (BVM) ventilation [
19,
20], make it aerosol-generating [
21]. The higher proportion of older patients [
20,
22] and the recurring nature of ECT visits [
23] also increase risk. Deployment of essential staff, including anesthesiologists, to the intensive care units and other departments, as well as a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) [
15], resulted in ECT centres globally reducing their patient volume or completely discontinuing services [
7,
18].
Several new strategies and treatment protocol changes were recommended and implemented worldwide to ensure the safe provision of ECT [
12,
18,
23]. Some pre-operative strategies were common, such as screening patients (e.g., inquiring about travel history, potentially infected close contacts, and testing patients for COVID-19) and altering airway management (e.g., limiting hyperventilation and hypersalivation by administering atropine or glycopyrrolate) [
7,
22]. Infection prevention methods were also employed throughout the procedure [
7]. Providers were required to wear PPE, such as N95 respirators, masks, eye goggles, face shields, double gloves, and long-sleeved gowns [
7,
22,
24]. Where possible, airborne infection isolation rooms, disinfected before and after each patient visit, were recommended for the administration of ECT [
25]. Recovery rooms, where patients rest after the procedure, were also modified to include physical barriers between beds and enforce physical distancing [
25]. Recommendations from the Society of Neuroscience in Anesthesia and Critical Care (SNACC) were to avoid using BVM ventilation to improve seizure quality and to instead opt for ketamine, etomidate, or methohexital [
26]. BVM ventilation would then only be used in cases of desaturation [
26].
A number of studies surveying ECT centres have been performed worldwide to evaluate national response to the pandemic, including the United Kingdom and Ireland [
27], Japan [
28], India [
29], Hungary [
30], Germany, Austria, and Switzerland [
31], Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand [
32‐
34], France [
35], Qatar [
36], Turkey [
37], and the United States [
17,
38]. In line with these studies, our team has previously published findings from a “what happened” survey on the effects of COVID-19 on ECT services across Canada [
5]. The results demonstrated that 91% of surveyed centres in Canada terminated or reduced ECT services. Furthermore, the decision-making process was dependent on each centre’s own risk perception and thus resulted in a lack of harmonized response to the pandemic, meaning that ECT centres often developed their own guidelines and best practices on an ad hoc basis.
This previous work examined COVID-related changes in ECT delivery from a national perspective. However, as healthcare services in Canada are under the jurisdiction of each provincial government [
39] and given the pre-existing differences in ECT delivery across Canadian provinces [
40], an interprovincial analysis is needed to inform best practices for future service disruptions. To our knowledge, an interregional comparative study on ECT service changes in response to COVID-19 in any country, including Canada, has not yet been performed. With this study, we aim to provide a closer examination of the interprovincial data collected by our team as part of the national response analysis.
Limitations
The current study possessed several notable limitations. Limitations in the survey methodology have been addressed in our previous report on ECT delivery changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada [
5] and also apply to the current study. The current analysis was performed across regions with varying sample sizes ranging from n = 31 in Ontario to n = 6 in the Atlantic provinces, which could limit the generalizability of the results. The clustering of provinces into regions also limits some conclusions, as individual hospitals from different provinces were amalgamated into regions, such as those of Western and Atlantic Canada. Within the Canadian healthcare system, individual provinces hold authority over the majority of the decision-making [
39], and thus, these clustered results may not necessarily be generalizable to represent the decisions of the entire region of Western or Atlantic Canada that these provinces form. Moreover, the survey was intended to collect data pertaining to the perspectives of the ECT providers and, thus, fails to take into consideration what patients themselves perceived to be barriers to accessing ECT during COVID-19. Further, it should be noted that the survey was administered retrospectively, and the results only pertain to the time period between mid-March 2020 and mid-May 2020. Since then, the understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and its transmission has advanced, and there have been changes in morbidity and mortality due to the evolution of variants and vaccination, as well as more widespread natural immunity. Since 2020, best practices for providing ECT in pandemic-like circumstances have evolved, and a repeated survey providing a snapshot of how ECT centres have operated since mid-May 2020 is warranted.
Conclusions
During the first wave of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, all provinces witnessed the administration of ECT reduced or paused as a precautionary measure to increase hospital capacity in preparation for a potential surge of COVID-19 admissions, as well as to limit the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between patients and healthcare workers. The results of the survey show that there were interprovincial differences in the provision of ECT during the acute phase of the pandemic, probably reflective of local, institutional, and provincial standards that guided pandemic decision-making at each centre.
While such standards were likely also shaped by the COVID-19 community burden and healthcare system capacity in the examined Canadian provinces [
49,
81], the trends presented here expose unequal disruptions to access to ECT across Canada in spring 2020 – a problem that possibly extends beyond the first wave of COVID-19 into Waves 2 and 3 [
81] and that can be a serious challenge in future pandemic-like contexts. In spring 2020, access to this essential and life-saving treatment was not equally well preserved across the country, which raises obligations – especially in the most affected regions – to review how to better maintain ECT services during public health emergencies. While ECT delivery decreased for all four indications (inpatient, outpatient, acute, maintenance) in all areas, institutions in two regions – Western and Atlantic Canada – showed a significant capacity to maintain services. Surely there are “best pandemic practices” utilized in these institutions that should be identified and disseminated nationally and internationally. Even if access to ECT was most disrupted in regions with the highest COVID-19 burden, it is incumbent upon decision-makers in healthcare to preserve capacity for essential procedures of all kinds despite the public health emergency. This is a critical ethical concern that must be addressed at every level of health leadership.
Declarations
Competing interests
ID, VKT, SD, AB, SL, MA, KF, JR, AV, and DK do not have any disclosures. In the last 5 years, ZJD has received research and equipment in-kind support for an investigator-initiated study through Brainsway Inc. and Magventure Inc. His work is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), Brain Canada, and the Temerty Family and Grant Family through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation and the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute. KK is supported in part by Merit Awards from the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Toronto, and has received support from Octapharma, Instrumentation Laboratory, and Bayer. SHK has received honoraria or research funds from Abbott, Alkermes, Allergan, Boehringer Ingelheim, Brain Canada, CIHR, Janssen, Lundbeck, Lundbeck Institute, Ontario Brain Institute, Ontario Research Fund, Otsuka, Pfizer, Servier, Sunovion, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and holds stock in Field Trip Health. KSL is supported in part by Merit Awards from the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Toronto. SVP has received research support from the CIHR, Ontario Brain Institute, the Flinn Foundation, Sage, Takeda, and Assurex (Myriad); is a consultant to Assurex, Aifred, Mensante, Sage, Takeda, Janssen, and Otsuka; and has equity in Mensante. DMB has received research support from the CIHR, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Brain Canada, and the Temerty Family through the CAMH Foundation and the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute. He received research support and in-kind equipment support for an investigator-initiated study from Brainsway Ltd., and he is the principal site investigator for three sponsor-initiated studies for Brainsway Ltd. He receives in-kind equipment support from Magventure for investigator-initiated research. He received medication supplies for an investigator-initiated trial from Indivior. AJF has received grant support from the NIH, Patient-Centred Outcomes Research Institute, CIHR, Brain Canada, Ontario Brain Institute, Alzheimer’s Association, and AGE-WELL. VB is supported by an Academic Scholar Award from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and has received research support from CIHR, Brain & Behavior Foundation, Ministry of Health (MOH) Innovation Funds, The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC), Department of National Defence (Government of Canada), and from Roche Canada for an investigator-initiated trial.
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