Abstracts

Studies indicate that up to 50% of patients with epilepsy have mental health disorders, with mood, anxiety, and psychotic disturbances being the most common. However, the prevalence of psychiatric illnesses in persons with epilepsy in the general population varies, owing to differences in methods, population, case ascertainment, and heterogeneity of epilepsy syndromes. We assessed the prevalence of self-reported, physician diagnosed mental health conditions associated with epilepsy in a large Canadian population health survey The Canadian Community Health Survey (CHS, N=36,984) used probabilistic sampling to explore numerous aspects of mental health in the entire Canadian population, of whom 253 subjects had epilepsy. With sampling weights, the prevalence of epilepsy was 0.6%. Depression was ascertained with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (Short Form). Other valid scales various aspects of psychiatric comorbidityThe prevalence of drug and alcohol use, and abnormal ideation were ascertained through personal interviews. We explored age specific prevalence of mental health problems in epilepsy The lifetime prevalence of depression was 22.2% (95%CI 14.0-30.4%) compared with 12.2% in the general population. The prevalence of depression in people with epilepsy was higher than in the general population in younger, but not older ([gt]64 years) age groups. There was a marked effect of age on the prevalence of major depression (higher in younger individuals). The prevalence of social phobia was 15.8% (8.4-23.2) in people with epilepsy and 8.1% (7.6-8.5) in the general population. The 12-month prevalence of drug or alcohol dependence was not higher in people with epilepsy (3.0%) than in the general population (3.1%). Lifetime suicidal ideation was higher in patients with epilepsy 25.0% (95% CI 16.6-33.3) than in the general population 13.3% (95% CI 12.8-13.9) The prevalence of depression was considerable higher in younger people with epilepsy than in the general population. Social phobia and low indices of well being were more prevalent in epilepsy. We corroborated a high prevalence of suicidal ideation was in epilepsy patients. In contrast to other reports, we did not find a higher prevalence of alcohol and drug dependence in people with epilepsy. The complete analysis of mental health comorbidity will be presented