The Socio-Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of the Adult Epileptic Patients Applying to the Neurology Clinic of Erciyes University and the Relation of These Phenomena to Depression

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The epidemiological characteristics of epilepsy vary from society to society. Epilepsy, whose prevalence is between 0.5-1.0%, is usually seen in early and late ages, at the both of ends of life, and more often in males, and in people who have low income and education.

Besides ıts neuropsychologic effects, epilepsy is a disease which has psychological, socilogical aspects such as social isolation, low self-esteem and depression. Depression is seen more often in people with epilepsy than people who don’t have this disease. The percentage of depression for the whole life-time for people with epilepsy is 10-30%. Age at onset of epilepsy, seizure type, frequency, time and the type of treatment (mono-poly therapy) affect the incidence and degree of depression.

OBJECTIVES: To define the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of epilepsy cases, to determine the percentage of depressive disorders in epilepsy cases, to probe the characteristics of epileptic seizure and its relation to depression.

METHODS: The study was conducted through a face-to-face survey of 102 adult epileptic patients who applied to the Erciyes University Epilepsy Outpatient Clinic between October 2004 and 2005. In order to gather the data, which was prepared by the researcher “A survey form for the epileptic individuals” and “The Turkish Version of Beck Depression Inventory”, whose accuracy and validity was checked by Hisli, was used.

RESULTS: The average age for the cases is 34.3±12.6, the average age at seizure onset is 21.4±14.6 and in 66% of them the seizure started when they were under 25. Majority of the cases were male and lower than the minimum wage. Among the patients, 45.6% had generalized (tonic-clonic) seizures, and 36% had been ≥1/month seizures and 32% seizure-free during the previous year.

CONCLUSION: The average of depressive disorder was 29.4%. 15.7% of the cases were with major depression. Age at onset epilepsy, seizure type and seizure time and seizure frequency and the type of treatment (mono-poly therapy) didn’t affect the level of incidence of depression significantly. For primary level educated and those who didn’t use their drugs regularly, the rate of major depression was seen to be significantly high (p<0.05).