One hundred and forty-four people with convulsive seizures (CS) and 144 healthy controls were evaluated for cognitive function, using a battery of neuropsychological tests. People with CS performed significantly worse than the controls on the Mini-Mental State Examination, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, auditory verbal learning test, digit span test, verbal fluency test, and digit cancellation test. The percentage of patients who had abnormal scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale was higher than that of controls (54.9% vs. 7.6%, p<0.001). Cognitive functional impairment was detected in 65.3% of the patients and 29.2% of the controls (p<0.001). People with CS presented with depressive mood and a wide range of cognitive deficits, particularly deficits in episodic declarative memory, attentional capacity, semantic memory, and mental speed. Years in education were positively associated with the cognitive performance of people with CS (OR=0.655, 95% CI: 0.486-0.882, p=0.005). (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.