Medical and psychiatric comorbidities, somatic and cognitive symptoms, injuries and medical procedure history in patients with functional seizures from a public and a private hospital.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Patients with functional seizures (FS), otherwise known as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), from different socioeconomic backgrounds may differ, however, this remains a gap in current literature. Comorbidities can play both a precipitating and a perpetuating role in FS and are important in the planning of individual treatment for this condition. With this study, we aimed to describe and compare the reported medical and psychiatric comorbidities, injuries, somatic and cognitive symptoms, and medical procedures among patients with FS from a private and a public epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) in Cape Town, South Africa. METHODS: This is a retrospective case-control study. We collected data on the comorbidity and medical procedure histories, as well as symptoms and clinical signs reported by patients with video-electroencephalographically (video-EEG) confirmed FS without comorbid epilepsy. We used digital patient records starting with the earliest available digital record for each hospital until the year 2022. RESULTS: A total of 305 patients from a private hospital and 67 patients from a public hospital were included in the study (N = 372). Public hospital patients had higher odds of reporting intellectual disability (aOR=15.58, 95% CI [1.80, 134.95]), circulatory system disease (aOR=2.63, 95% CI [1.02, 6.78]) and gait disturbance (aOR=8.52, 95% CI [1.96, 37.08]) compared to patients with FS attending the private hospital. They did, however, have fewer odds of reporting a history of an infectious or parasitic disease (aOR=0.31, 95% CI [0.11, 0.87]), respiratory system disease (aOR=0.23, 95% CI [0.06, 0.82]), or medical procedures in the past (aOR=0.32, 95% CI [0.16, 0.63]). CONCLUSION: The study presents prevalence and comparative data on the medical profiles of patients with FS from different socioeconomic backgrounds which may inform future considerations in FS diagnosis and treatment.