Browsing by Author "Vilyte, Gabriele"
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- ItemPersonality traits, illness behaviours and psychiatric comorbidity in individuals with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures (PNES), epilepsy and other non-epileptic seizures (oNES): differentiating between the conditions(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Vilyte, Gabriele; Pretorius, Chrisma; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.ENGLISH SUMMARY: One of the most pressing issues in psychogenic non-epileptic seizure (PNES) diagnosis is to ensure that the condition is successfully differentiated from epileptic seizures (ES) and other non-epileptic seizures (oNES). Video electroencephalography (vEEG), which is considered to be the gold standard for PNES diagnosis, is largely inaccessible to most in this country. Hence, more often than not, individuals suffering from this psychiatric condition are assumed to have epilepsy and are erroneously treated with anti-epileptic drugs, which creates individual and societal financial strain, poses numerous health risks and complications, and delays access to appropriate treatment. Very little is still known about the South African PNES population and as of yet, there have been no attempts at developing any cheaper, quicker and easier to administer alternative diagnostic measures for PNES in South Africa. The study aimed to investigate if South African individuals with PNES differ from individuals with ES and oNES in terms of demographic and seizure characteristics, personality traits, illness behaviours, and depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in statistically significant ways; and if so, to test if these differences can be utilised in raising suspicion of PNES as the differential diagnosis to epilepsy and oNES. Twenty-nine adults with seizure complaints were recruited using convenience sampling from two private and government hospitals with vEEG technology. A quantitative double-blind convenient sampling comparative design was used. A demographic and seizure questionnaire, the NEO Five Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI-3), Illness Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ), the Beck Anxiety Inventory – Primary Care (BAI-PC) were administered. Only data from twenty-four people from the private hospital was made available for data analysis. Cronbach’s alphas, ANOVA, Cross-tabulation, Fisher exact test, and ROC analyses results are reported. The final sample consisted of 5 PNES (21%), 16 ES (67%) and 3 oNES (13%) patients. The PNES group was found to be significantly more male and to experience significantly more monthly seizures, when comparing PNES and ES, and PNES and the combined ES and oNES group. No significant differences between groups were found in terms of age, population group, language, education, and age at first seizure. No significant differences were found between the groups on any of the NEO-FFI-3 subscales. Only item “Do you experience a lot of pain with your illness?” on the IBQ exhibited a significant difference, with PNES tending to answer “Yes” more often when compared to the other two groups. All three groups scored above the cut-off point of 5 exhibiting depression, anxiety and PTSD symptoms on the BAI-PC. However, the PNES group tended to score significantly higher than the ES and the combined group. A cut-off point of 12 was found to be optimal in predicting PNES in this seizure population using the BAI-PC. Descriptive statistics or tendencies are reported for all used measures. This study provided a greater understanding of personality domains, abnormal illness behaviours, psychiatric comorbidity and demographic and seizure factors in the PNES population and discussed the potential for these factors to be used in the future for PNES screening.