Influence of comorbidity on mortality in patients with epilepsy and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to determine the contribution of comorbidities to excess psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) mortality. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted of tertiary epilepsy outpatients from St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Australia with an 8:1 comparison cohort, matched by age, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES) to national administrative databases between 2007 and 2017. Privacy-preserving data linkage was undertaken with the national prescription, National Death Index, and National Coronial Information System. Forty-five comorbid disease classes were derived by applying the Australian validated RxRisk-V to all dispensed prescriptions. We fitted Cox pro..