Seizure in Psychiatric Inpatients: A Retrospective Local Study

Introduction: Behavioral and cognitive dysfunction is frequently observed in patients with recurrent seizures and represents an important challenge in treating these patients. In the present assessment the incidence and clinical profile of seizure attacks have been probed among a great sample of non-western psychiatric inpatients and compared with the available data in literature regarding prevalence and other associated clinical physiognomies.

Methods: All inpatients that had suffered seizure attack during the last sixty-four months had been included in the present study. Clinical diagnosis, as well, was in essence based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5).

Results: While epilepsy had been identified as the primary cause of seizure (82.92%), 17.64% of them had experienced their first attacks during hospitalization. Annual incidence of seizure in psychiatric inpatients, on the whole, was around 0.07%. It was almost 0.06 in identified epileptic cases and about 0.01% with respect to the first time unprovoked epileptic attack. Also, the seizure attacks were significantly more prevalent among male psychiatric inpatients than female patients. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were significantly more prevalent than substance abuse, schizoaffective and depression, as comorbid psychiatric disorders among patients who had suffered seizure attacks, generally, and known cases of epilepsy, particularly.

Conclusion: While, etiologically, epilepsy had been identified as the primary cause of seizure in psychiatric inpatients, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were significantly more prevalent, as comorbid psychiatric disorders, in comparison with other primary psychiatric illnesses. Male gender, as well, could be considered as a risk factor.

Keywords: Seizure; Epilepsy; Schizophrenia; Mood disorder; Neuropsychiatry