Abstracts

Children with epilepsy have greater behavior problems than healthy controls. Both intractability and mental handicap predict greater risk. Cohort study of 58 children aged 4-17 years with epilepsy attending a tertiary care pediatric neurology clinic. Parent-completed Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) subscores were compared between children with and without refractory epilepsy (defined as failure of [gt]2 AEDs and seizures [underline][gt][/underline] q3monthly over the past year) and with and without mental handicap using the Mann-Whitney U test. 58 children were surveyed, 21 with refractory epilepsy (4 normal cognition, 17 mental handicap) and 37 with non-refractory epilepsy (22 normal cognition, 15 mental handicap). Groups did not differ significantly with respect to age or gender. Those with refractory epilepsy scored significantly higher (more abnormal) on the Social Problems (p[lt]0.05) and Attention Problems (p[lt]0.02) subscales of the CBCL. Those with mental handicap scored significantly higher on the Withdrawn (p[lt]0.001), Social Problems (p[lt]0.00001), Thought Problems (p[lt]0.00005), Attention Problems (p[lt]0.00001) and Aggressive Behavior (p[lt]0.02) subscales. While children with refractory epilepsy have greater behavior problems as indicated by the Social Problems and Attention Problems subscales, co-morbid cognitive impairment appears to be even more predictive of poor behavioral outcome in children with epilepsy.