Quality of Life Assessment in Epilepsy Patients With Topiramate

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Quality of life is important in epilepsy treatment. We evaluated the effect of topiramate on the quality of life in epilepsy patients and on the characteristics of the clinical features in patients with improved scores on the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-10 (QOLIE-10). METHODS: We included 631 adult epilepsy patients, who were followed for 16 weeks. We analyzed the effect of topiramate on QOLIE-10 score. The patients were classified into those with improved scores (IG) and those whose scores did not improve (NG). We compared each QOLIE-10 item and their clinical features between the IG and NG groups. RESULTS: All item scores, as well as the total score, improved after topiramate treatment. Comparison of the scores for each item showed that working and social factor differences of both the IG (>0.72) and NG groups (>0.80) were higher than for the other items. Age, gender, seizure onset, topiramate dose, adverse event, education level, employment, and migraine did not differ significantly between the IG and NG groups. The effect on seizure reduction was the most significant among the clinical features (P<0.001). The epilepsy syndrome, etiology, previous antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), and weight changes did not differ significantly between the two groups (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Topiramate treatment can influence the quality of life in adult epilepsy patients, and especially work and social factors. Seizure reduction, epilepsy syndrome, etiology, previous AEDs, and weight change may be the most affected clinical factors in patients who have improved quality of life with topiramate.