Sustained improvement with mindfulness-based therapy for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures

•Follow-up after mindfulness-based therapy for PNES conducted at 3–6 months.•Fourteen (54%) of 26 patients attended follow-up.•PNES frequency, intensity, and days per week with PNES remained improved.•Illness perception, worry, and feeling understood improved over the course of MBT. We previously reported on the efficacy of a manualized 12-session mindfulness-based therapy (MBT) for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES). Completion of MBT provided improvements in weekly PNES frequency and self-rated intensity. In this study, we aimed to determine sustainability of improvement of seizure-related measures at 3- to 6-month follow-up after treatment completion. We also examined changes at treatment end and at follow-up on therapeutic targets of the MBT program. Patients with documented PNES were recruited from 2014 to 2018. Baseline measures were collected at time of diagnosis (T0) and at first follow-up post-diagnosis (T1). Outcomes are reported at MBT treatment completion (T3) and 3- to 6-month follow-up (T4). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for pair-wise comparisons of PNES frequency; linear mixed models were used for other outcomes. Fourteen of the 26 MBT completers (54%) attended follow-up (median 147.5 days between T3 and T4). PNES frequency, intensity, and number of days/week with PNES remained reduced at T4 (p