Nocturnal panic attack is characterized by sudden awakening from sleep followed by the classical symptoms of panic disorder. Although it occurs nearly in half of adult panic disorder cases, little is known about occurrence and treatment in childhood. In this paper, we present a 12 years old girl, hospitalized in the paediatric inpatient unit for her nocturnal seizures; consulted to child and adolescent psychiatry department during management; diagnosed as panic disorder and recovered with sertraline. Nocturnal panic attack is one of the main causes of non-epileptic seizures that would benefit from psychiatric treatment options and has to be considered in differential diagnosis of nocturnal paroxysmal events.
Key words: panic attack, nocturnal, child, treatment, sertraline
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