Personality disorder traits in patients with epilepsy.
OBJECTIVE
The Questionnaire on Personality Traits (VKP: Vragenlijst voor Kenmerken van de Persoonlijkheid) was used to investigate personality disorder (PD) traits in 203 patients with epilepsy and a control group of 332 subjects from the general population. Furthermore, the association of PD traits with epilepsy-related variables was studied, as well as the association between PD traits and level of psychopathology.


RESULTS
The results showed that, compared with the control group, patients with epilepsy had higher dimensional VKP scores for several Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) PDs. Associations were found between PD traits and age at onset of epilepsy, duration of epilepsy, seizure frequency and number of anti-epileptic drugs. Anxiety and depression were not associated with PD traits.


CONCLUSIONS
It is likely that suffering from epileptic seizures negatively influences personality development and can result in the development of maladaptive PD traits. The results also support the idea that PD traits are not (completely) covered by axis I psychopathology and therefore should be separately investigated.
Swinkels
W A M
WA
Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland (SEIN), Heemstede, The Netherlands. mswinkels@sein.nl
Duijsens
I J
IJ
Spinhoven
Ph
P
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D010556:Personality Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires