ArticleActa neuropsychiatrica2026
Predicting the need for electroconvulsive therapy via machine learning trained on electronic health record data.
Article in Acta neuropsychiatrica, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
objectivesElectroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment of severe manifestations of mental illness. Since delay in initiation of ECT can have detrimental effects, prediction of the need for ECT could improve outcomes via more timely treatment initiation. Therefore, this study aimed to predict the need for ECT following admission to a psychiatric hospital.
methodsThis study was based on electronic health record (EHR) data from routine clinical practice. Adult patients admitted to a hospital within the Psychiatric Services of the Central Denmark Region between January 2013 and November 2021 were included in the study. The outcome was initiation of ECT >7 days (to not include patients admitted for planned ECT) and ≤67 days after admission. The data was randomly split into an 85% training set and a 15% test set. On the 7
resultsThe cohort consisted of 41,610 patients with 164,961 admissions. In the held out test set, the trained model predicted ECT initiation with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.94, 47% sensitivity, 98% specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) of 24% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 99%. The top predictors were the highest suicide assessment score and mean Brøset violence checklist score in the preceding three months.
conclusionsEHR data from routine clinical practice may be used to predict need for ECT. This may lead to more timely treatment initiation.
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