Psychiatric symptom profiles of patients with epilepsy: a controlled investigation.

A comparison was made of the mental state of patients with chronic epilepsy and matched controls with locomotor disorders, using a reliable psychiatric interview technique. The symptom profiles of the two groups were similar. The profiles of temporal lobe and other epileptics were also similar. Epileptic patients with a high current psychiatric morbidity were characterized by a raised incidence of previous neurotic illness and raised neuroticism scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory.