Abstracts

RATIONALE: Few studies have addressed affective personality features and psychosocial status in patients considered for resective epilepsy surgery. Since the results of these studies are conflicting, we investigated the personality of patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). METHODS: We examined 37 patients with medically intractable unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (16 - 55 years). Twenty patients had right temporal and 17 had left temporal focus. We used current standardized personality inventories (FPI-A-H, STAI, IPC, TSK). The four selfrating instruments were supplemented with the rating scale "Greifswalder Eigenschaftsw rterliste fnr Epilepsiekranke" (GEWLE). To control for the influences of psychosocial and cognitive stressors we assessed the individual psychosocial situation and the cognitive status of all patients. RESULTS: Patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy were characterized by increased emotions of dependance, less exterior composeness, higher depressive drive and mood, more nervousness, higher recall for information and experience exchange and also a higher tendancy to perseverate (p?0.05). The cognitive and psychoscial status of the patients , however, were not different significantly. The depression self-rating scale, the new implemented activity scale of the FPI and of the TSK the scale "Searching for Information and Experience Exchange", the scales of composeness and nervousness in the GEWLE lateralized the temporal lobe epilepsy correctly. CONCLUSIONS: The evaluation of personality features contributes to the lateralization and counseling of patients with TLE considered for epilepsy surgery.