24-hour rhythmicity of seizures in refractory focal epilepsy.

The occurrence of seizures in specific types of epilepsies can follow a 24-hour nonuniform or nonrandom pattern. We described the 24-hour pattern of clinical seizures in patients with focal refractory epilepsy who underwent video-electroencephalography monitoring. Only patients who were candidates for epilepsy surgery with an unequivocal seizure focus were included in the study.

Validation of a three-dimensional model about sleep: Habits, personal factors and environmental factors.

Objectives: The present study aims to test the factor structure of two sleep questionnaires and their internal consistency in a sample of adolescents and their respective parents and to evaluate the validity and robustness of a three-dimensional model about sleep, addressing nine subcategories related to sleep habits, personal and environmental factors.

Methods: Participants were 654 adolescents from Portuguese schools, who completed "My Sleep and I" questionnaire, and 664 parents who completed "My child׳s sleep" questionnaire; to them confirmatory factor analysis was applied.

Results: Confirmatory factor analysis indicate that a nine-factor model has better fit indices compared with the others tested models for both samples (adolescents: χ (2)/df (Chi-square/degrees of freedom)=2.