About 30% of persons with epilepsy have seizure phobia, according to a study from Israel published in Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy.

A cross-sectional study of 69 persons, aged ~37 years (average), with epilepsy visiting a tertiary epilepsy clinic was conducted; 41 of the study participants were women, and 41 were married. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, demographic questionnaires and medical records. The average age of the participants was 36.8 years.

Nineteen (27.5%) of the 69 participants were diagnosed with seizure phobia. They were more likely to have comorbid anxiety disorders (84.2% vs 34.9%), past major depressive episodes (63.2% vs 20.9%) and post-traumatic stress disorder (26.3% vs 7%). Persons with seizure phobia were mostly women (84.2% vs 44.2%). A significant association between seizure phobia and comorbid psychogenic non-epileptic seizures was also noted (36.8% vs 11.6%, respectively). The probability of seizure phobia was10.45 times higher in patients with any anxiety disorder, and 6.85 times higher in patients with major depressive episodes.

Seizure phobia is “an anxiety disorder in which patients experience fear related to anticipation of seizures in certain situations. The major feature of seizure phobia is the fear of developing seizures; however, unlike generalized anxiety disorder, the degree of fear depends on the level of exposure to the feared object or trigger in the environment such as agorophobia. Persons with seizure phobia also have a history of panic attacks when anticipating seizures.

This is the first study to characterize seizure phobia as a distinct anxiety disorder among persons with epilepsy. The prevalence of seizure phobia was nearly 30% in this study group. While seizure phobia was significantly associated with being female, comorbid anxiety disorders and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, past major depressive episodes, no associations with variables of epilepsy such as seizure types, duration, location of epileptic foci, etiology were noted.

Reference

1. Weiss A, et al. Seizure phobia: A distinct psychiatric disorder among people with epilepsy. Seizure. 2022 Feb;95:26-32. doi: 10.1016/j.seizure.2021.12.009.