Abstracts

Rationale: Earlier age at onset is associated with higher levels of psychosocial problems, lower IQ and memory impairment. Developmental stage at disease onset influences how children experience epilepsy, stress, and their psychosocial adjustment. Longer duration is associated with depression and anxiety. However, little is known about the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQL) and age of onset, epilepsy duration, or proportion of life with epilepsy. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 394 children with active epilepsy (mean age 11years) and their parents. Respondents completed the self-report and proxy Childhood Epilepsy specific HRQL Measure, ‘CEHRQL’ (Epilepsia 2003;44:598-612). Statistical analysis was done with SPSS v. 12. Results: Earlier age of onset, longer duration and higher proportion of life with epilepsy each correlated with poorer HRQL. However, these three variables correlated strongly with each other (p < 0.01), therefore, the following results focus only on epilepsy duration. The relationship between duration and HRQL differed between self-report and proxy report, overall children and adolescents rated their HRQL better than the parents did. Epilepsy duration correlated closely with the subscales of Interpersonal/Social, Intrapersonal/Emotional and Quest for Normality but not with the subscales of Worries/Concerns and Epilepsy-Secrecy.Conclusions: Epilepsy duration may represent a marker for unspecified determinants of HRQL. Longitudinal follow-up, particularly of self-reported HRQL measures, may help us understand the life course trajectories of children with epilepsy.