We used a well-characterized group of patients with epileptic seizures (ES), psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), and PNES with comorbid epilepsy (ES+PNES), along with their caregivers, to investigate potential differences among the three populations in terms of demographic, clinical, and psychosocial characteristics.

Patients admitted to the Emory University Hospital EMU from September 2016 and June 2019 along with their caregivers completed questionnaires on demographic, clinical, and psychosocial aspects of their disease before their diagnosis was elucidated. Using video-EEG as gold standard, the cohort was trichotomized as ES, PNES, and ES+PNES. Univariate analysis was used to evaluate differences in all collected characteristics between the 3 populations. 

43 PNES, 165 ES, and 22 ES+PNES patients were recruited. Compared to ES and PNES, ES+PNES patients had longer disease duration. PNES patients had the highest rate of spell frequency per month. ES patients had fewer comorbidities, greater number of antiseizure medications, fewer medication side effects, fewer hospital admissions for seizures, better quality of life, less perceived stigma, worse epilepsy knowledge, and less anxiety and depression compared to PNES and ES+PNES patients. Additionally, 28 PNES, 99 ES, and 10 ES+PNES caregivers were recruited. There were no statistically significant differences among caregivers, except ES+PNES caregivers were predominantly male, while ES and PNES caregivers were mostly female.