NCT06145971: CBTi 4 DS:SCED

Assessing the Impact of Brief CBTi on Dissociative Seizures: SCED

Completed NA Last updated 3 April 2025

What this trial tests

NA trial testing brief Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (bCBTi) in Dissociative Seizures in 3 participants. Completed in 29 March 2025.

Timeline

6 May 2024

Primary endpoint
30 December 2024

29 March 2025

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	University of Glasgow
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	single group
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	3
Start date	6 May 2024
Primary completion	30 December 2024
Estimated completion	29 March 2025
Sites	1 location across United Kingdom

Drugs / interventions tested

• brief Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (bCBTi)

Conditions studied

• Dissociative Seizures — all drugs for Dissociative Seizures →
• Functional Seizures — all drugs for Functional Seizures →
• Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures — all drugs for Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures →
• Insomnia — all drugs for Insomnia →

Sponsor

University of Glasgow

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Dissociative Seizures or Functional Seizures. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Some people experience a temporary change in behaviour and consciousness, that often involves a collapse and/or shaking limb movements. These are referred to as 'Dissociative seizures'. Those who experience such seizures have been found to also display high levels of dissociation, which can be described as a change in your conscious experience and may include gaps in your memory for events. It is thought that people who experience dissociative seizures also often have difficulties with their sleep. Having difficulties with sleep may make these seizures and the amount of dissociation an individual experiences worse. Greater dissociation may be additionally linked to worsening dissociative seizures. A psychological treatment for sleep difficulties called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi), has been found to be effective in reducing sleep difficulties.

The main questions this study aims to answer are:

1. Does brief CBTi (bCBTi) improve sleep difficulties in those with dissociative seizures?
2. Does bCBTi reduce the frequency of dissociative seizures?
3. Does bCBTi reduce self-reported levels of dissociation in participants?
4. Does improving sleep difficulties lead to improvements in quality of life, mood and anxiety levels?
5. Is bCBTi a feasible intervention to administer in an inpatient setting?

This study will investigate whether improving sleep by administering a brief version of CBTi leads to an improvement in levels of dissociation and dissociative seizure frequency. It will also investigate whether brief CBTi is a feasible treatment method for sleep difficulties in an inpatient setting.

Participants who have dissociative seizures and sleep difficulties that could be diagnosed as insomnia will be randomly assigned to a baseline phase of 5, 7 or 9 days, where they will fill out daily questionnaires on their sleep, dissociation and number of seizures. They will then begin a 10-day intervention phase where they will attend two sessions of brief CBTi, whilst also completing daily measures. This will allow us to see whether their scores on the sleep and dissociation measures improve when the intervention begins. Participants will be asked to wear an Actiwatch during the night, to gather information on their movement levels during the night. Information on changes in quality of life, mood and anxiety levels following the sleep intervention will also be collected.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.