Abstracts

Epilepsy often is a chronic disorder with great impact on patients[apos] psychosocial functions. Prevalence of affective symptoms (anxiety and depression) is 20-55%.
The aim of our study was to evaluate affective symptoms in patients with medically refractory epilepsy, which underwent the Innsbruck Epilepsysurgery programme. 102 konsecutive patients were studied. Postoperative seizure outcome was classified by the proposed classification of Wieser (2001). The hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) was used to identify caseness (possible and probable) of anxiety disorders and depression. Patients were studied preoperatively, 3 mo and 1 yrs postoperatively. Patients were divided into two groups [HADS (0-7;normal), HADS ([gt]=8;possible/probable). 102 patients (51 f, median age 42 yrs, range (17-71 yrs) were included. 54 and 73 patients showed modest anxiety and depression scores preop (HADS =0-7) compared to 48 and 29, who exhibited elevated scores (HADS[gt]= 8). There was no korrelation between duration of epilepsy, diagnosis and localisation of epilepsy, age or gender and HADS results.
Patients with elevated scores preoperatively improved significantly over time postoperatively (p[lt]0.001; anxiety and depression), but showed elevated scores overall compared to patients revealing modest scores (p[lt]0.005). patients with normal scores preoperatively showed improved anxiety scores postop, depressin scores were stabile. There was no significant korrelation between seizure freedom (yes/no) and HADS scores, although seizure free patients showed a trend to perform better. Affective symptoms (anxiety and depression) were found in 30-50% of patients with medically refractory epilepsy. A significant postoperative improvement of anxiety and depression scores was shown.