Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on characteristics of functional (psychogenic) seizures.

OBJECTIVE

We investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the clinical characteristics of patients with functional seizure (FS) (at the time of diagnosis).

METHODS

In a retrospective study of a prospectively developed and maintained database, all patients diagnosed with FS before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were studied at the outpatient epilepsy clinic at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran, from December 2008 until February 2021.

RESULTS

Three hundred and eighty-eight patients were studied. Three hundred and sixty-four patients (94%) were diagnosed before and 24 persons (6%) during the pandemic. Patients diagnosed during the COVID-19 pandemic less frequently had generalized motor seizures [odds ratio (OR): 0.30, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.12-0.77; p = 0.012] and had higher seizure frequencies (OR: 1.00, 95% CI: 1.00-1.01; p = 0.044). Functional seizures were inversely associated with the education level as a trend during the COVID-19 pandemic (OR: 0.36, 95% CI: 0.13-1.01; p = 0.052).

CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the characteristics of patients with FS (at the time of diagnosis). Larger and multi-center studies are needed to investigate the links and associations between the COVID-19 pandemic and characteristics of FS.