role of electroencephalogram in psychiatric patients in developing countries

ABSTRACT

We studied 300 electroencephalograms [E.E.G.] of patients attending Jaddah Psychiatric Hospital in a period of one year in an attempt to know the proportion of epileptic patients attending the psychiatric clinics and their diagnoses and main symptoms which generate the interest of the psychiatrist to seek E.E.G. help in diagnosis. Temporal lobe seizures were over-represented and showed the highest correlation with the provisional clinical diagnoses for which E.E.G. was sought. Fits, altered consciousness and deterioration in social behaviour came as the main complaints for which E. E. G. was requested. In developing countries, epileptics are still constituting a significant portion of patients in the psychiatric clinics