Abstracts

Despite increasing use in epilepsy centers as a measure of psychological functioning, the Personality Assessment Inventory[apos]s (PAI) utility has not been formally examined within this population. Past studies have used other objective measures of psychological functioning in an effort to discriminate between epileptic and nonepileptic seizure patients. This study examines differences between these patient groups using the PAI. Sixty consecutive long-term monitoring patients completed the PAI as part of a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. Forty-five percent (n=27) were discharged from the monitoring unit with a diagnosis of epilepsy only (EO), 32% (n=19) with a psychogenic nonepileptic seizure diagnosis (PNES), and 23% (n=14) of the patients had spells that were indeterminate in nature or did not have a typical event during monitoring (IS). Age, education, gender distribution, and WAIS-III Full Scale IQ were not significantly different between the three groups. PNES and IS patients scored significantly higher than the EO group on the Somatic Complaints scale on the PAI (p = .034). Specifically, these patients scored, as a group, in the clinical range on Somatic Complaints subscales measuring Conversion (p=.041) and Somatization (p=.034) symptoms. The subscale measuring Health Concerns measured in the clinical range for all three groups, but was not significantly different between diagnostic categories. Mean scores for all three groups fell within the normal range on all other clinical scales, with the exception of the Depression scale. On this measure, IS and PNES patients scored in the clinical range at the group level while EO patients did not, but this difference did not reach significance. There were no differences on validity scales between the three groups, all of which fell within acceptable ranges. The PAI appears to be a useful measure when evaluating patients on an epilepsy long term monitoring unit, and may aid in identification of patients who do not have epileptic seizures. Patients with documented PNES and those with indeterminate spells tend to report a higher number of somatic complaints, relative to patients with documented epilepsy only. Interestingly, patients with indeterminate spells produced PAI profiles quite similar to PNES patients. Future studies should examine the PAI[apos]s ability, in conjunction with other measures, to predict diagnostic group membership.