Factors associated with generic and disease-specific quality of life in epilepsy

Objective: To investigate the association between quality of life (QOL) and sociodemographic factors, clinical seizure factors, depression and anxiety in patients suffering from epilepsy.

Methods: We examined 141 consecutive patients with epilepsy (mean age 25.8±9.6, 61.7% male). All patients completed the Self-Rating Depression Scale, Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, WHOQOL-BREF and QOLIE-31(Chinese version). Multiple linear regression analyses were applied to investigate factors impact on QOL.

Results: The results revealed that scores on two domains of the WHOQOL-BREF (i.e., physical and psychological domains, P<0.05) were significantly lower in the epilepsy group compared with the control group. Multiple regression analyses showed that anxiety, depression and course explained approximately 40% of the variance in patients' QOL. Anxiety was consistently the strongest predictor of lower scores on almost all QOL domains. In addition, the severity of depressive symptoms was significantly associated with lower scores across many QOL domains.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that QOLIE scores might be substantially affected by the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms and, to a lesser degree, of depressive symptoms and prolonged course of illness. In contrast, clinical seizure variables had a weaker association with QOL. Healthcare professionals should be aware of the significance of patients' emotional state and of the role it plays in their QOL.