Quality of Life, Depression and Anxiety in Patients With Epilepsy: Controlled Study With Short Form 36 Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, and Hamilton Anxiety Scale

Abstract

Objective To investigate the health-related quality of life (HRQOL), anxiety and depression states of patients with epilepsy. Design Cross-sectional data analysis. Setting University Hospital Neurology Department. Participants Sixty ambulatory patients with epilepsy and healthy, age and sex-matched control group of 33 people. Main Outcome Measures Medical Outcomes Study, Short Form Health Survey, Beck Depression Inventory, Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A). Results The Short Form-36 Health Survey scores were significantly lower in all subscales in patients with epilepsy compared with the control group (P<0.05). Total scores for Beck Depression Inventory were 16.5±9.44 and 6.24±6.81 in patients and control groups, respectively. This difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). HAM-A were also found to be significantly increased in the epilepsy group (P<0.05). This was true for all the subscales of HAM-A such as psychic anxiety score, somatic anxiety score and total score. Conclusions Epilepsy significantly interferes with quality-of-life and psychologic health of patients. In contrast, according to the results obtained in our sample, we couldn't find any relationship except the seizure frequency and vitality in the patient group among variables such as educational status, follow-up period, age at onset of seizures, the duration of the disease, single or multiple antiepileptic drug use, and types of seizures with both health-related quality of life and psychologic health status.