Prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in temporal lobe epilepsy: the value of structured psychiatric interviews.

Background: Although many studies have demonstrated a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in epileptic patients, most have used unstructured psychiatric interviews for diagnosis, which may lead to significant differences in results. Here we present a study evaluating the prevalence of major psychiatric comorbidities in a cohort of South Brazilian patients with temporal lobe epilepsy using a structured clinical interview.

Methods: Neuropsychiatric symptoms were analyzed in 98 patients (39 men and 59 women) with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Left-sided EEG focus and positive psychiatric family history are independent risk factors for affective disorders in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Objective: To identify independent risk factors for affective disorders in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Methods: We studied 97 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) exploring variables like age, gender, family history of epilepsy and psychiatric disorders, duration of epilepsy, control of seizures, presence of aura and initial precipitant insult, abuse of substances, neuroimaging and EEG features.

Results: Forty-one patients (42.