Correlates of psychological distress in epileptic patients during the COVID-19 outbreak

Following the severe consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, on March 9th, 2020 the Italian Government implemented extraordinary measures to limit viral transmission, including restrictive quarantine measures. Psychological distress represents the seizure-precipitating factor most often reported by patients with epilepsy. To date, no studies have analyzed the role played by the different dimensions of psychological distress quarantine-induced in patients with epilepsy.

We included a total of 40 patients, 18 suffered from generalized, and 22 from focal epilepsy. The patients previously seen in the outpatient clinic during the pre-lockdown period between January and February 2020 were reevaluated after the lockdown period. Psychological distress was evaluated by using the three subscales of Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). Finally, we employed logistic regression analyses to explore the demographic and clinical features associated to high scores on IES-R.

Patients with higher scores on IES-R Intrusion and IES-R Avoidance subscales demonstrated an increased number of epileptic attacks compared to prelockdown period. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that a specific subgroup of patients (i.e., older, female with more anxious symptoms) are at higher risk of increased seizure frequency.

Our study confirmed that the frequency of epileptic seizures increased during lockdown when compared to pre-lockdown period. The early identification of patients more vulnerable to worsening is crucial to limit the risk of requiring hospital or clinical treatment during the COVID-19 outbreak.