Ictal stuttering: a sign suggestive of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if ictal stuttering (IS) is more common among patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) than patients with epileptic seizures (ES).

METHODS: The authors prospectively reviewed the medical records, EEG-video recordings, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) scores of consecutive adults of normal intelligence diagnosed with either PNES or ES.

RESULTS: A total of 230 (117 PNES and 113 ES) patients were studied. PNES patients were older (p = 0.029), more likely to be female (p < 0.001), and had a shorter duration of seizure disorder (p < 0.001) than ES cases. Ten (8.5%) PNES subjects and no ES cases demonstrated IS. The proportion of patients with IS in these two groups was significantly different (p = 0.004). PNES patients with IS were of similar age as but had an even shorter (p = 0.010) duration of seizure disorder (mean = 3.0 years) than those without IS. Scores on the hypochondriasis, depression (D), and hysteria scales of the MMPI-2 were significantly higher among PNES subjects than in ES patients (p < or = 0.002). However, seven PNES patients with IS had a lower mean score on the D scale than did 98 PNES cases without stuttering (p = 0.005). This produced a more sharply defined "conversion V" appearance on the MMPI-2 graph in the stutterers.

CONCLUSIONS: Ictal stuttering was present in 8.5% of 117 consecutive patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, but was not observed in a consecutive series of 113 adults with epileptic seizures. Patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures with ictal stuttering had a shorter duration of seizure disorder and a more prominent conversion profile on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory than either patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures without stuttering or subjects with epileptic seizures.