PNESSE 1: Psychogenic status and status epilepticus: Could they be distinguished retrospectively? A survey among neurologists

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ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate neurologists' reliability in recognizing retrospectively a diagnosis of psychogenic status and status epilepticus (SE) based solely on clinical semiology, as reported in medical charts. MethodsThis is a retrospective analysis of medical records of patients with suspected SE, diagnosed with psychogenic status and SE, proven by video-electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring, over a two-year period, from January 1st 2012 to December 31st 2013. Eight additional patients outside this time frame were included in this series because they had video-EEG proven psychogenic status, and they met all the inclusion criteria. The group with SE was divided into symptomatic SE (SSE) if a precipitating factor was identified, and undetermined SE (USE) if none were identified. Twenty-two neurologists from the CHU de Grenoble-Alpes were asked to fill out a survey where they were asked to score, for each patient, their agreement, using Likert scales, for the respective diagnoses of psychogenic status and SE. Their opinions were based on a provided written sheet summarizing the clinical description of the event and patients' clinical context. Neurologists were blinded to video-EEG monitoring results and final diagnosis. The level of agreement, disagreement, and the homogeneity of neurologist's responses according to the final diagnosis were then calculated. Finally, clinical data, as provided in the event's clinical description and context, considered as highly relevant by neurologists to establish an accurate diagnosis were gathered. ResultsEighteen neurologists completed the survey for 48 patients, including 11 diagnosed with psychogenic status and 37 with SE (30 with SSE and 7 with USE). For patients diagnosed with SE, the presence of a precipitating factor increased the likelihood and the homogeneity among neurologists of a diagnosis of SE (77%), with a specificity (Sp) of 96% and a positive predictive value of 95%. The lack of a precipitating factor significantly decreased the diagnosis likelihood of SE (55%) with a predictive value of 82%. For patients diagnosed with psychogenic status, most of neurologists agreed with the diagnosis of psychogenic status (69%) with a predictive value of 82%, although heterogeneity in the diagnosis was found. According to neurologists participating in this study, most significant terms, found in the medical charts, helping to distinguish SE from psychogenic status were “stereotypical movements”, “limb myoclonus”, “epilepsy”, and “vigilance alteration”. To differentiate psychogenic status from SE, most relevant terms used by neurologists were “resistance to eyes opening”, “anarchic movements”, “prolonged motor manifestations”, “limb tremor” and “opisthotonus”. However, analysis of the distribution of the terms among the different groups (SSE, USE, and psychogenic status) showed no significant difference. SignificanceThis study is in line with previous literature highlighting the difficulty in retrospectively differentiating SE from psychogenic status based on clinical events description recorded in the medical chart.