Psychiatric disturbance associated with epilepsy in a tertiary health service in Sudan

ABSTRACT

Co morbid psychiatric Disorders are common in epileptic patients. This relationship had not been studied before in Sudanese patients. To study the common psychiatric disturbances and their correlates among epileptic patients attending a tertiary health service in the Sudan. Sixty two patients with idiopathic epilepsy were submitted to psychiatric assessment using the General Health Questionnaire [GHQ], a semi-structured questionnaire and direct clinical assessment. Thirty patients [48.4%] of them emerged as probable psychiatric cases. Severity of epilepsy showed a slightly less strong correlation with the GHQ score. Social class [P<0.05], together with vocational, educational [P<0.05] and social relations difficulties [p<0.07] showed significant correlation with the GHQ score. The study showed that psychiatric co-morbidity is a common complication of epilepsy that is related to severity of epilepsy and social stress of being epileptic