Magnetic Seizure Therapy for Psychotic Disorders

Psychosis is recognized as one of the largest contributors to nonfatal health loss, and substantial portion of patients exhibit resistance to antipsychotics, emphasizing the need for exploring non-pharmacological treatments. In clinical practice, Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been shown to be generally effective in psychosis, but its clinical use sometimes is limited by its cognitive side effects. Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST) is a novel modification of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). MST offers the advantages of milder side effects on cognition, a quicker return of orientation, and a shorter duration of post-ictal confusion. A few studies have studied the antipsychotic effect of MST. Therefore, the present study will plan to perform a clinical trial to compare the efficacy of MST treatment plus antipsychotics to antipsychotic medications alone among psychotic disorders in acute phase. In addition, whether MST treatment plus antipsychotics will bring a quicker efficacy response than antipsychotic medications alone is also of important clinical significance. The present trial will plan to administer 10 sessions of MST in 2 weeks, in which the patients will be randomly allocated to either receiving MST+medications or receiving medications alone. After the 2 week's research intervention, all patients will be switched to clinical routine management, but kept under masked clinical assessment for 4 weeks.