Journal of Anesthesiology and Pain

Aims and Background: Opiate addiction, is one of the most prominent health problem in diverse communities

which may lead to anxiety during treatment and relapse. This study investigates the efficacy of transcranial

direct current stimulation (TDCS) on anxiety during treatment of opiate addiction via the ultra rapid opioid

detoxification approach (UROD).

Methods and materials: It is a randomized, double blind controlled survey which was conducted on forty

scheduled subjects for UROD. TDCS was applied at 24 hour intervals for two sessions by the researcher. The

anxiety scores were recorded before the intervention, immediately before UROD, and 24 hours afterwards using

Beck questionnaire. Data were analyzed via repeated measure ANOVA using SPSS software.

Findings: All the participants were male with mean drug abuse duration of 8.37 ±2.4 and 7.37 ± 2.4 years in

intervention and control groups, respectively. According to statistical analysis, anxiety was less in the intervention

group and the difference was significant at all time intervals (P-value&le0.008). We observed about 90% decline

for anxiety in intervention group one hour after UROD (p-value&le 0.01) while it was about 25%for control group

(P-value=0.163) and it increased in the control group within 24 hours.

Conclusions: Generally speaking, TDCS is an effective approach to alleviate anxiety due to pre-anesthesia and

withdrawal syndromes during UROD.