Dissociative experiences in patients with epilepsy

Abstract

Dissociative disorders are characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior 1 . Dissociative experiences occur on a continuum ranging from the minor or normative dissociative states such as absorbtion or daydreaming customary to daily life to pathological states such as dissociative identity disorder 2 . The prevalence rates has varied from a low of 1.0% to a high of 12.8% depending on the cut-off point indicative of pathological dissociative symptomatology 3,4 . The Dissociative Experience Scale (DES) is the most widely used standard screening tool utilized for assessing dissociative symptoms 3,4,5 .The strong linkages of dissociation to childhood emotional, physical or sexual trauma have long been recognized. Dissociation is considered to serve as a defense mechanism againts intolerable, trauma-associated memories and feelings 4 . Despite dissociative disorders are conceptualized in a separate spectrum, pathological dissociation has been demonstrated to be higly co-occurring condition with mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorders, anxiety and mood disorders, and substance use disorder 4 . Dissociative experiences can also be observed in different types of brain pathology such as epilepsy, head injuiry, tumor, encephalitis and intoxication 6,7 . AbstrACtA few studies have explored dissociative experiences in epilepsy patients. We investigated dissociative experiences in patients with epilepsy using the dissociative experiences scale (DES). Ninety-eight patients with epilepsy and sixty healthy controls were enrolled in this study. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were administered to the participants. The DES scores were significantly higher for the patients with epilepsy than the healthy individuals. The number of individuals with pathological dissociation (DES ≥ 30) was higher in the epilepsy group (n = 28) than in the control group (n = 8). Also, higher levels of dissociation were significantly associated with frequency of seizures, but were not associated with duration of epilepsy and age at onset of the disorder. These findings demonstrate that patients with epilepsy are more prone to dissociation than controls. The high rate of dissociative experiences among patients with epilepsy suggest that some epilepsy-related factors are present.Keywords: dissociative experiences, epilepsy. Palavras-chave: experiências dissociativas, epilepsia.

Association between Epilepsy and Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures: A Case Report

“…A recent research conducted by Ozdemir et al (2016) [28], has investigated dissociative experiences in epilepsy patients using the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES).…”