What do patients prefer their functional seizures to be called, and what are their experiences of diagnosis? – A mixed methods investigation

•Terms to describe functional seizures were ranked by 39 patients with functional seizures.•Thirteen patients completed semi-structured interviews on their experience of being diagnosed.•NEAD, Functional seizures, FNEA and Dissociative seizures were the most preferred terms.•NEAD was the least offensive term, with Functional seizures and FNEA following closely.•Thematic analysis indicated that a term needs to facilitate shared acceptance and understanding.•Several terms provided this, and there was not a shared agreement among patients.•Following our previous study, we propose that the term Functional Seizures or FNEA is adopted.