Citation

Serafino B, Fabio S, Bernadette PM, Maurizio E, Mike K, Santo DN. Seizure 2012; 21(3): 160-164.

Affiliation

Unit of Psychology, IRCCS Oasi Maria SS., Troina (EN), Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.seizure.2011.10.008

PMID

22244737

Abstract

We aimed to identify the presence of self-injurious behavior in a sample of 158 people with intellectual disability and epilepsy as compared with a control sample consisting of 195 people with intellectual disability without epilepsy. The Italian Scale for the Assessment of self-injurious behaviors was used to describe self-injurious behavior in both groups. The groups were matched for ID degree: mild/moderate (20 and 20 respectively), severe/profound (45 in both samples) and unknown (4 in both samples). Seventy-four percent of the first sample were diagnosed with symptomatic partial epilepsy. The prevalence of self-injurious behaviors was 44% in the group with intellectual disability and epilepsy and 46.5% of the group with intellectual disability without epilepsy (difference not significant). The areas most affected by self-injurious behaviors in both samples were the hands, the mouth and the head. The most frequent types of self-injurious behaviors were self-biting, self-hitting with hands and with objects. Self-injurious behavior is frequently observed in individuals with epilepsy and intellectual disability. Our study does not suggest that the presence of epilepsy is a risk factor for self-injurious behavior in this patient group.

Language: en