Psychoses of epilepsy: A study comparing the clinical features of patients with focal versus generalized epilepsies

In the literature, psychosis of epilepsy (POE) has been described as one of the most frequent psychiatric comorbidities of epilepsy, occurring particularly in association with temporal lobe epilepsy. However, the presence of such psychiatric disorders among patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsies has also been mentioned. In this study, we evaluated the clinical features of psychotic disorders in a series of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy related to mesial temporal sclerosis (TLE-MTS) and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy with the aim of describing and comparing the clinical patterns of the psychotic symptoms in such frequent and important epilepsy syndromes. POE occurred most frequently in patients with TLE-MTS (P = 0.01), but no differences were observed between the groups with respect to the subtypes and core symptoms of psychoses. The clinical implications of POE in both epilepsy syndromes are discussed.

Research highlights
► Psychotic disorders in patients with JME and TLE-MTS were described and compared.
► Psychotic disorders were more prevalent in TLE-MTS patients.
► Clinical patterns of psychoses did not differ between groups.