Psychiatric symptom profiles of patients with epilepsy: a controlled investigation

Abstract

SynopsisA comparison was made of the mental state of patients with chronic epilepsy and matched controls with locomotor disorders, using a reliable psychiatric interview technique. The symptom profiles of the two groups were similar. The profiles of temporal lobe and other epileptics were also similar. Epileptic patients with a high current psychiatric morbidity were characterized by a raised incidence of previous neurotic illness and raised neuroticism scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory.

Depression in Patients With Epilepsy

“…One of the reasons the depressed epileptics had high N scores is because the EPI is sensitive to depression. This would also complement the findings of Standage and Fenton (1975) who found higher N and lower E scores in a group of psychiatrically impaired epileptics compared with a control group of epileptics from a neurolog,J clinic.…”

“…He found a significant association between a 500/o reduction in seizure frequency before admission to hospital in patients admitted with depressive illness, while an increase in seizure frequency was common in those epileptic patients admitted with either acute behaviour disturbance or clouded states. Standage and Fenton (1975) in their study found that epileptics scored higher on various items including somatic symptoms of depression and depressive mood. They found that, in addition, a significantly higher proportion of the "high scoring" group had experienced fewer attacks than usual in the month before examination.…”

“…Workers refuting the idea are Small et al (1962), Stevens (1966), Mignone et al (1970 and Standage and Fenton (1975). Stevens (1966), for example, has questioned the role played by selective referral to specialist centres.…”

“…-146 - Standage and Fenton (1975) examined a series of 37 people with epilepsy us:L.'1g the EPI. Twenty seven were attending a neurological clinic, while the rest were attending a psychiatric clinic.…”

Anger Is a Distinctive Feature of Epilepsy Patients with Depression

“…Furthermore, Kanner and Palac (2000) have emphasized the clinical significance of this epilepsy-specific mood disorder, demonstrating that at least three quarters of epilepsy patients with depressive symptoms have non-clinical depression according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria, and that anhedonia without sadness or irritability may predominate. However, others refute the idea of an epilepsy-specific mood disorder and suggest that depressive symptoms in epilepsy are similar to those seen in patients without epilepsy ( Standage and Fenton 1975;Dodrill and Batzel 1986;Metcalfe et al 1988;Reilly et al 2006). Overall, the prevailing idea is that the constellation of depressive symptoms in patients with epilepsy mostly overlaps with that observed among patients with idiopathic major depression (Lambert and Robertson 1999).…”