Introduction 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. Materials and Methods 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. Results 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. Conclusions 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.

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COVID-19 爆发期间癫痫患者心理困扰的相关性

简介 在 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 爆发的严重后果之后，意大利政府于 2020 年 3 月 9 日实施了限制病毒传播的特别措施，包括限制性检疫措施。心理困扰是癫痫患者最常报告的癫痫发作诱发因素。迄今为止，尚无研究分析隔离所引起的不同维度的心理困扰对癫痫患者的作用。材料和方法 我们总共纳入了 40 名患者，其中 18 名患有全身性癫痫，22 名患有局灶性癫痫。此前在 2020 年 1 月至 2 月的封锁前期间在门诊就诊的患者在封锁期后进行了重新评估。通过使用事件影响量表修订版 (IES-R) 的三个分量表评估心理困扰。最后，我们采用逻辑回归分析来探索与 IES-R 高分相关的人口统计学和临床​​特征。结果 在 IES-R 侵入和 IES-R 回避分量表上得分较高的患者表现出与封锁前相比癫痫发作次数增加。多变量逻辑回归分析表明，特定亚组患者（即年龄较大、焦虑症状较多的女性）癫痫发作频率增加的风险较高。结论 我们的研究证实，与封锁前相比，封锁期间癫痫发作的频率有所增加。