Exploring the relationship between stress and seizures
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Stress and seizures – exploring the associations between stress and seizures in patients with epilepsy and patients with non-epileptic attack disorder
IRAS ID
132057
Contact name
Markus Reuber
Contact email
Research summary
Background: Epilepsy and nonepileptic attack disorder (NEAD) are chronic, disabling conditions that cause a great degree of stress in patients’ lives. Stress can, in turn, make seizures worse. Most people with epilepsy think that stress is the commonest trigger of their seizures and studies show that stressful events can bring about more seizures in some people with epilepsy. There is also animal research which suggests that stress can make epileptic seizures more likely. Seizures in NEAD or thought to be a response to distressing external or internal stimuli.
Research Question: Our study will try to find out more about the relationship between stress and seizures in people with epilepsy and NEAD. We are interested in whether the stress self-reported by patients and the effects of stress on their brain and body are related to each other and to seizures.
Design: We will recruit patients who have been referred for video-EEG monitoring because of seizures at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and measure their stress levels by stress questionnaires, heart recordings and saliva samples. Using a simple experiment, we will also look at whether people with seizures react differently to more or less threatening words presented on a computer screen than people without seizures and test whether these responses can be changed by a very simple psychological intervention. The study is part of a PhD project at the University of Sheffield, carried out between May 2013 and September 2015 in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/YH/0220
Date of REC Opinion
10 Sep 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion