Personality and behavioral changes in epilepsy is known for a while. But neither quantitative characteristics nor etiology of these changes are not clear yet. There are many studies focusing on personality disorders in epilepsy using different methods. Cloninger has developed a psychobiological model of personality which provides to evaluate personality in a dimensional way.

In this present study, we examined the relationship between the Cloninger's dimensional psychobiologic model of personality and epilepsy. 73 outpatients of epilepsy and 70 healthy controls were examined using SCID I, Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and a questionnaire for epilepsy.

Epilepsy patients had higher harm avoidance (HA) and lower persistence, self-directedness (SD), cooperativeness scores than healthy controls.

In epileptic subjects no correlation was determined between TCI traits and age and duration of epilepsy. HA scores were higher in women. Subjects with partial seizures had higher HA scores and lower SD scores than generalized ones. Self Transcendence (ST) scores were different in groups due to frequency of epileptic seizures in One Way ANOVA but not corrected with Tukey HSD. Existence of comorbid depression was represented with lower ST scores. In multiple linear regression models only MDD predicted lower scores of SD.

This study confirms existence of specific personality changes among the epileptics by dimensional personality model of Cloninger and indicates a relationship between the characteristics of epilepsy and psychiatric comorbidity. Further investigations are needed for a clear understanding of common etiology of epilepsy and personality changes.