Stressful Life Event Appraisal and Coping In Patients with Psychogenic Seizures and Those with Epilepsy
Introduction from Dr Markus Reuber, editor-in-chief of Seizure
Seizure 21/4 has published Stressful Life Event Appraisal and Coping In Patients with Psychogenic Seizures and Those with Epilepsy
Seizure is explicitly not only a journal about epilepsy but also about other paroxysmal disorders including Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures (PNES). My editor’s choice paper for this issue of Seizure is the manuscript “Stressful Life Event Appraisal and Coping In Patients with Psychogenic Seizures and Those with Epilepsy” by Mark Testa and colleagues. This hypothesis-driven study which has been better controlled and conceived than most in this field probes some of the unanswered questions about the aetiology of PNES. It demonstrates that the rates of recent adverse life events in patients with PNES are no higher than those in patients with epilepsy or healthy controls but that patients with PNES find their lives more distressing. This suggests that the encouragement of more active coping could help patients with PNES get better.
Full text of Stressful Life Event Appraisal and Coping In Patients with Psychogenic Seizures and Those with Epilepsy