Correlation between severity of seizures and anxiety among epileptics: Evidence from a case-control study

Abstract

Introduction: Very often patients who have epilepsy also develop psychiatric illnesses, most commonly either depression or anxiety or both. The current study was conducted with the objective to determine the correlation between severity of seizures and anxiety symptoms in patients having epilepsy. Materials and Methods: This was a case-control study. The cases were subjects diagnosed with epilepsy and controls were attendants of other patients who came to the out-patient departments of Hamidia Hospital, Bhopal. A total of 45 cases and 45 sex and age-matched controls were included in the study. The severity of seizures was assessed by the National Hospital Seizure Severity Scale questionnaire. The level of anxiety was assessed both among cases and controls using the Indian version of Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Developed by D. Sinha in 1961. Results: 91% of the control group showed normal anxiety score and 44.4 % of epileptics were categorised as having normal anxiety score. Only 13.3% of cases reported having very high anxiety score. We observed that the mean anxiety scores of epileptic patients and controls differed very significantly (p < 0.001). The anxiety scores among epileptics showed a positive correlation (R2 = 0.49) with seizure severity scores. Conclusions: There was a correlation between seizure severity level with the arising anxiety symptoms. Keywords: Anxiety, Epilepsy, Seizure, Severity.