Short-term effect of inpatient treatment of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

Abstract

Introduction: Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) is a dissociative disorder with attacks resembling epileptic seizures. Previous studies have shown that patients with PNES have distinct demographical and health-related features. No studies, however, exist that describe Danish patients with PNES. In this study, we present the clinical characteristics of patients who received inpatient cognitive behavioural psychotherapy for PNES. We also present data on the short-term effect of PNES treatment for patients with and without comorbid epilepsy.

Methods: In this retrospective study, we reviewed medical records for patients admitted for treatment of PNES at the Danish Epilepsy Centre from 2018 to 2023. We compared psychometric scores before and after admission as outcome measures.

Results: Our cohort consisted of 86.6% women with a mean age of 34.1 years at admission. 29.1% lived alone, and only 39.6% were employed or under education. The patients had a long history of PNES (mean 68.6 months), and a large proportion had comorbid epilepsy (34.1%) or psychiatric comorbidity (67.2%). We found significant improvement in all psychometric scores after admission. Comorbid epilepsy had no significant impact on this effect.

Conclusions: Danish patients receiving inpatient treatment for PNES are very similar to other published cohorts. Four weeks of psychotherapy significantly improved all psychometric scores for patients both with and without epilepsy.

Funding: This study was funded entirely by the Danish Epilepsy Centre.

Trial registration: Not relevant.