Personality profiles and clinical syndromes of patients withtonic-clonic seizures

Abstract

Introduction: Epilepsy is one of the chronic neurological disorders with an incidence rate of 3% in the normal population. Epilepsy may render behavioral changes so that affected people are prone to prolonged interpersonal difficulties. In order to evaluate co-morbidities and potential personality changes, the study was conducted among the patients with epilepsy in an Iranian population. Methods: The study was a cross-sectional one with a convenience sampling method. The data of 74 patients with epilepsy and 74 non-epileptic patients were collected by clinical interview and Millon clinical multiaxial inventory (MCMI-III) and were analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The average age was 31.70. The highest scores gained in epileptic patients were in narcissistic 14.04 (4.53%), obsessive 14.26 (4.30%), and negativistic domains 14.15 (5.24%), while histrionic 76.38 (28.54%) and obsessive 61.74 (24.03%) patterns were obtained in non-epilepticpeople. There were significant differences between the two groups in all areas except for the debasement index (Z score) and the negativistic personality disorder. There was a significant positive correlation between narcissistic and obsessive personality patterns and post-traumatic stress disorder with education, as well as between sex and drug dependency. Economic and marital status showed correlations with schizoid personality and sadistic personality, respectively. Conclusion: Patients with tonic-clonic seizures have although difficulties in personality (negativistic) and clinical syndrome areas but the results showed lower scores in  subscales except for disclosure (X index) compared with non-epileptic individuals. They are more inclined to disclose the problems with worse mental health conditions than non-epileptic people.

Keywords: Epilepsy, Tonic-Clonic, Personality, Personality Disorder