Beschreibung:
<jats:title><jats:sc>Summary</jats:sc></jats:title><jats:p> <jats:bold>
<jats:styled-content>Purpose:</jats:styled-content> Different authors suggested the occurrence of a pleomorphic affective syndrome in patients with epilepsy named interictal dysphoric disorder (IDD). We sought to investigate whether IDD occurs only in patients with epilepsy and to validate IDD features against <jats:italic>DSM‐IV</jats:italic> criteria.</jats:bold> </jats:p><jats:p> <jats:bold>
<jats:styled-content>Methods:</jats:styled-content> Consecutive patients with a diagnosis of epilepsy (E) or migraine (M) have been assessed using the BDI, MDQ, and the Interictal Dysphoric Disorder Inventory (IDDI), a questionnaire specifically created to evaluate IDD symptoms. Diagnosis of current and lifetime <jats:italic>DSM‐IV</jats:italic> Axis I disorders was established using the MINI Plus version 5.0.0.</jats:bold> </jats:p><jats:p> <jats:bold>
<jats:styled-content>Results:</jats:styled-content> A total of 229 patients (E = 117; M = 112) were evaluated. Females were significantly more represented in the migraine group (E = 46.5% vs. M = 73.3% p = 0.009), but there was no difference in age, duration of the disease, or education level. Patients with epilepsy were more likely to screen positively at MDQ (E = 17% vs. M = 5.3% p = 0.006) and to have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (E = 14.5% vs. M = 4.5% p = 0.013) as compared to migraine patients. There was no between‐groups difference in IDD prevalence (E = 17%; M = 18.7%) and IDDI total scores (E = 4.1 ± 2.0 vs. M = 3.8 ± 2.0). Validation of IDD against <jats:italic>DSM‐IV</jats:italic> categories showed current major depression being the foremost diagnostic category correlated with IDD in both epilepsy (OR = 0.32–0.12–0.88, p = 0.028) and migraine (OR = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.02–0.49, p = 0.004) samples. Current anxiety disorder correlated with IDD only in migraine patients (OR = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.05–0.77, p = 0.02).</jats:bold> </jats:p><jats:p> <jats:bold>
<jats:styled-content>Conclusion:</jats:styled-content> IDD represents a homogenous construct that can be diagnosed in a relevant proportion of patients but it is not typical only of epilepsy, occurring in other central nervous system disorders such as migraine.</jats:bold> </jats:p>