Affect in patients with epilepsy undergoing video/EEG monitoring: Retrospective versus momentary assessment and temporal relationship to seizures

This study was designed to (1) compare retrospective and momentary assessments of mood/affect, and (2) examine the temporal relationship between affect and seizure occurrence. Patients with epilepsy undergoing long-term video/EEG monitoring (LTM) completed an affect rating of how they felt “at that moment” each time a programmed watch beeped (momentary assessment); these ratings were averaged across each patient’s hospital stay. Prior to discharge, patients were asked to think back and rate how they felt “during their hospital stay” using the same rating scale (retrospective assessment). Results indicated that patients retrospectively recalled feeling significantly more positive during their LTM than they reported feeling when they were actually undergoing LTM. Among patients who had EEG-verified seizures, momentary assessments were used to compare affect during the interictal periods with affect during the prodromal and postictal periods. The latter two periods were characterized by significantly less activated positive affect than were the interictal periods.