Anxiety and depression in people with epilepsy

Bayasgalan D; Delgermaa V; Tsagaankhuu G; Tovuudorj A

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Epilepsy is a common neurological disease, which need to health care and public health servicetopicality that is a very important for people with epilepsy (PWE). Therefore psychosocial problemssuch as depression, anxiety, and stigma, discrimination from other people, negative public attitude andmisunderstanding significantly influence on their psychosocial well-being and quality of life.

PURPOSE:

To study an anxiety and depression in people with epilepsy.MATERIALS AND

METHODS:

77 patients aged between 20 and 60 were included in our study group. In order to identify psychosocial problems we used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and a tenitem measure of felt stigma (Austin, Dunn et al) for this cross-sectional study.

RESULT:

There were 77 PWE and slightly more 53.2% male, 46.8% female and, in comparison group. Of theseparticipants 44.2%were married, 75.3% unemployment. The frequencies of anxiety symptoms in PWEwere 31.2% very anxiety, 32.5%anxiety and 36.4% not anxiety, the rates of depressive symptoms inPWE were18.2% very depressed, 19.5% depressed and 62.3% not depressed, respectively. All ofthe 62.3% PWE felt stigma. Considering the age, psychological problem, some of the variables ofthe participants, the age of the people with epilepsy was associated with depression and the stigmascores, negatively (r = -0.2, p = 0.05; r = -0.2, p = 0.05).We observed a positive correlation between BDI and BAI scores in PWE (r = 0.6; p = 0.01).There hasalso the relationship between stigma and anxiety, depression, social-interaction of the attitude scoresin PWE (r = 0.5, p = 0.01; r = 0.5, p = 0.01; r = 0.4, p = 0.01), whereas that the correlation statistic didnot indicate a relationship between the duration of the epilepsy and anxiety, depression, stigma andsocial-interaction’s scores

CONCLUSION:

Of the people with epilepsy 31.2% have very anxiety, 33.8% have anxiety and 18.2% have verydepressed, 19.5% have depressed. This reveals that it has positive relationship with social-interactionand attitude. Frequency of epileptic seizures influences the anxiety and depression of the people withepilepsy and thus worsens their stigmatization.