A Comparative Study of Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Prevalence in Epilepsy Patients and Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizure Patients

Abstract

Summary: Purpose: This study tests the hypothesis that trauma histories, including histories of physical and sexual abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more prevalent in psychogenic non–epileptic seizure (NES) patients than in epilepsy patients. Methods: Thirty‐five inpatients with intractable seizures were evaluated for trauma history and PTSD. After these assessments, patients were diagnosed as having either epileptic or nonepileptic seizures through EEG monitoring. Results: NES diagnosis correlated with PTSD and total number of lifetime traumas, adult traumas, and abuse traumas. Contrary to previous hypotheses, reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA) did not correlate significantly with NES diagnosis. However, CSA predicted PTSD in a discriminant analysis. Conclusions: We found evidence for the hypothesized relations between trauma, abuse, PTSD, and NES diagnosis. However, elevated levels in both seizure‐disorder groups suggest that routine assessment for abuse, trauma, and PTSD might facilitate medical care and treatment for all intractable seizure patients.