Objective:

We aimed to explore the prevalence and types of personality disorders in persons with IGE and to compare it with the general population.

Background:

Personality disorders remain as an illness in the shadows, with scarce literature on their prevalence in people with epilepsy. Moreover, personality disorders in idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) have not been explored so far. While previous studies have focused on Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, we aimed to assess whether similar patterns extend to other IGE subtypes and to compare their prevalence as well as explore pattern of various types of personality disorders with respect to general population.

Design/Methods:

 We included 57 healthy controls and 57 IGE cases who were diagnosed according to the International League Against Epilepsy criteria. The IPDE-ICD10 screening questionnaire was employed to investigate personality disorders, while the Bear-Fedio inventory (BFI) was utilized to study several behavior traits. 

Results:

Compared with controls, a higher prevalence of personality disorders was noted among patients with IGE (87.72% versus 36.84%, p=<0.001). They were more prevalent in female patients with IGE as compared to males (96.97% versus 75%; p=0.034). Personality traits like borderline(p=<0.001), anankastic(p=<0.001), anxious(p=<0.001), histrionic(p=<0.001), and impulsive(p=0.002) were higher in patients with IGE. Significantly higher scores in BFI were found among cases in all behavioral traits except hyper moralism, altered sexual, and dependence traits. Personality disorders were higher among female patients with IGE .On further analysis no association with the number of antiseizure medications nor the duration of epilepsy was seen for personality disorders. 

Conclusions:

Personality disorders were significantly higher in patients with IGE. Regardless of the subtype, the existence of a personality disorder makes treatment challenging. Hence, specific interventions addressing these disorders should be incorporated in patient management.