Effects of a brief psychotherapeutic intervention on resilience and behavior in patients with drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy and late seizure recurrence after surgery.

Seizure recurrence (SR) after epilepsy surgery in patients with medically resistant temporal lobe epilepsy and mesial temporal sclerosis (TLE-MTS) can compromise medical treatment and quality of life (QOL). However, there is a scarcity of interventions specifically addressing this issue in the literature. We aimed to evaluate the impact of a four-week psychotherapeutic intervention on the levels of resilience, behavioral symptoms, and QOL of patients with drug-resistant TLE-MTS who underwent corticoamygdalohippocampectomy (CAH) and who presented with late SR. Fifty patients who had been diagnosed with TLE-TMS, undergone CAH, and presented with late SR were included. The study instruments included a clinical and sociodemographic questionnaire and the Brazilian versions of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), the Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDI-E), the Interictal Dysphoric Disorder Inventory (IDDI), and the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-31). Significant reductions in the IDDI (p < 0.001) and NDDI-E (p < 0.001) scores, improvements in the CD-RISC-10 (p < 0.001) and QOLIE-31 (p < 0.001) scores, and positive correlations between resilience levels and QOL (p < 0.01), as well as a negative correlation between depressive symptoms and resilience (p < 0.01) and QOL (p < 0.01), were observed after the psychotherapeutic intervention. Improvements in the resilience levels and QOL, with concomitant reductions in depressive symptoms, were observed in patients with TLE-MTS and late SR after a brief psychotherapeutic intervention. Since there is a lack of studies that measured the impact of interventions in this patient subpopulation, these results may support the development of treatment strategies for this specific group.