Abstracts

Rationale:

There is limited information about behavioral health functioning (e.g., anxiety, depression) in youth undergoing evaluation for epilepsy surgery. In general, findings from modest, single site samples have been mixed; due to sample size and power limitations, examination of potential differences in developmental stage or sociodemographic characteristics has not been possible. This project aims to address these gaps by examining presurgical behavioral health parent rating scales from the multi-site Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC) surgery database.

Methods:

Four hundred fifty-one patients with epilepsy between the ages of one and twenty-two years who underwent neuropsychological evaluation as part of presurgical workup were identified using the multi-site PERC surgery database. Parent report of youth social-emotional functioning included two commonly used measures, the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-3) or Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). We examined rates of clinically elevated symptoms (T score>65) of composites (internalizing, externalizing, and total problems) and subscales (anxiety, depression, and attention problems) and performed chi square analyses to determine if there were differences in clinically elevated symptoms based on socio-demographic (e.g., age, IQ level, race/ethnicity, insurance type, hospital opportunity level) and epilepsy factors (e.g., seizure frequency, number of anti-seizure medicines [ASMs]).

Results: Youth showed high rates of attention problems (37.3%), depression (22.3%), and anxiety (16.7%). Girls were more likely to demonstrate clinically elevated symptoms of anxiety. Youth with IQ in the intellectual disability range (< 70) and those with genetic disorders were more likely to demonstrate clinically elevated attention problems. Younger children (<