The use of computer-assisted-telephone-interviewing to diagnose seizures, epilepsy and Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy

Background: Computer-assisted-telephone-interviewing (CATI), widely used in market research, could be a useful alternative for conducting diagnostic interviews in epilepsy epidemiology. Methods: We administered a diagnostic seizure questionnaire by CATI, interpreting the responses with standardized classification guidelines, compared against an epilepsy specialist’s assessment, for agreement [Kappa statistic (!)], sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and Youden’s Index (YI). Results: 99 outpatients with 382 lifetime events participated: 22 generalized-onset epilepsy [16 Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy (IGE)], 59 partial-onset epilepsy, 12 non-epileptic and 6 uncertain. We observed almost perfect agreement in diagnosing epilepsy (! = 0.94), seizure-onset types (! = 0.84), simple or complex partial seizures (! = 0.87), any generalized non-convulsive seizure (! = 0.82), and IGE (! = 0.82). Although substantial, agreement was not as close for secondarily generalized seizures (! = 0.74), and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (! = 0.79). This related more to under-recognition of individual generalized non-convulsive seizures rather than misinterpretation of partial seizures.