Considering temporality in causal relationship between seizure worsening and psychological stress in patients with epilepsy during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.
Epilepsy Behav
; 122: 108184, 2021 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1305328
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To investigate whether published studies that identified a causal relationship between psychological stress and seizure worsening in patients with epilepsy during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic considered the temporality of Hill's criteria.METHOD:
A systematic review approach was used to comprehensively search MEDLINE, CENTRAL, EMBASE, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases for relevant studies. Studies that reported an association between psychological stress and seizure worsening in patients with epilepsy during the COVID-19 pandemic were included accordingly. The quality of assessments in each study was evaluated and an assessment for considering temporality in the causal relationship between the two events in each study was carried out.RESULTS:
Seventeen studies were included in the analysis. Most (14/17) were cross-sectional studies and only four out of these 17 studies (23.5%) considered temporality in the causality. Further, these four studies did not consider temporality in the study design, they only described it as a limitation.CONCLUSION:
We found that many articles reported a causal relationship between psychological stress and seizure worsening without considering temporality. As both researchers and readers, we need to consider temporality when interpreting the causal relationship between increased psychological stress and seizure worsening in patients with epilepsy during the COVID-19 pandemic.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Epilepsy
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Epilepsy Behav
Journal subject:
Behavioral Sciences
/
Neurology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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