Abstracts

Rationale: Anxiety and depression are common in epilepsy patients and these conditions occurred from adverse effect of antiepileptic drugs, but can also developed by epilepsy itself. Authors evaluated anxiety and depression in newly diagnosed people with epilepsy (PWE) through a one-year longitudinal study, and investigated factors contributing to the development of anxiety and depression one year after diagnosis. Methods: Authors enrolled consecutive patients who were newly diagnosed PWE in Korea. Anxiety and depression were assessed by using the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) at baseline and one year later. A cut-off point of 8 or more was used for anxiety or depression. Demographic, clinical seizure-related and psychological data such as social support, stigma on one year after diagnosis, marriage, education, employment state were collected. The impact factors for developing anxiety and depression over one year were analyzed by paired t test and logistic regression analyses. A p < 0.05 was accepted as significant. Results: One hundred fifty three consecutive patients were included. Forty three (28 %) and 56 (36 %) suffered anxiety and depression one year after diagnosis, respectively. The average scores of anxiety and depression in HADS were 6.1 3.5 and 5.8 3.37 at the end of follow-up, respectively. The significant contributing factors for developing anxiety were baseline anxiety score of HADS (p = 0.000, OR = 1.536) and social support (p = 0.002, OR = 0.966). On the other hands, the significant contributing factors for developing depression were number of antiepileptic drugs (p=0.001, OR = 3.563), seizure recurrence during one year (p=0.049, OR = 2.445), baseline depression score of HADS (p=0.000, OR = 1.375) and social support (p=0.013, OR = 0.973). There were no significant correlations with marriage, education, and employment state. Conclusions: Social support was a significant factor for developing both anxiety and depression one year after diagnosis in newly diagnosed PWE. Epilepsy-related variables such as number of antiepileptic drugs and seizure recurrence after diagnosis also significantly contributed to depression one year after diagnosis. Our model was adjusted by the level of anxiety and depression at baseline, which was also significantly related to anxiety and depression one year after diagnosis one, respectively. Funding: None