A CINGULOTOMY is a operation performed for anxiety disorders.
- BOER (95) looked at cingulotomy's and found they were effective in decreasing anxiety and OCD.
- DOUGHERTY found that up to 45 percent of patients were partially improved by this operation. However the sample was only 44 people so is very small.
- COSGROVE found that it only benefitted 30 percent of patients.
Overall this evidence is inconsistent. It has been suggested it is only effective for between 25 and 70 percent, depending on the criteria of success.
There are problems with some evidence of the effectiveness of psychosurgery;
Unblinded studies
CORAN (2007) suggest studies into psychosurgery are biased because they study the unblinded, which means the person administering the test knows the object of the study and why the patient has had the surgery. This could lead to the person exaggerating the cure or influencing the results with their knowledge.
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