Abstracts

Rationale: Epilepsy is a diagnosis that can be fraught with stigma, unemployment, restrictions on activity and therefore, potential social isolation.   Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated poor social support to be a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality.  Social support is a key method of managing chronic disease and coping with its challenges. Yet this is an under-recognized area for people with epilepsy.  The objective of this study was to determine the impact of epilepsy on perceived social support among the Canadian population.   Methods: The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is a recurrent, annual cross-sectional national survey that collects information related to health status, health-care utilization and health determinants for the Canadian population.  Respondents must be 12 years of age or older.  In the 2010 and 2011 CCHS, respondents reported whether they had neurologic conditions including epilepsy.  We examined those respondents who provided evaluable responses to whether they had epilepsy.  This response could not be supplied via a proxy.  Social support was measured using the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS) in a subset of the population from five provinces (New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and North West Territories). This 18-item multi-dimensional survey covers four domains of social support: tangible support, affectionate support, positive social interaction and emotional/informational support with established internal-consistency reliability.  Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to model each MOS-SSS domain against age, gender and epilepsy.   Results: In the subsample of the Canadian population (23.4%), the CCHS was completed by 28,249 people of which 136 (0.34%) reported a diagnosis of epilepsy (95% Confidence interval, 0.25%-0.44%).  There were 49.1% male and 50.9% female respondents with an age demographic of 18 (19%) 12-24 year olds, 99 (65%) 25-64 year olds and 19 (16%) over 65.  Reported epilepsy predicted statistically significant lower perceived social support across all four MOS survey domains; tangible social support (p=0.021), affection (p=0.003), positive social interaction (p=0.006) and emotional/informational support (p=0.021). This effect of epilepsy on social support persisted after correcting for age and sex (p Conclusions: Canadians with epilepsy report significant impairment of social support systems.  While different types of social support may serve different functions, it is clear that people with epilepsy perceive lower availability of all aspects of functional social support. This is a poorly understood area of epilepsy research that may have important ramifications for health-related quality of life, self-esteem, physical and mental health in this vulnerable population. Funding: N/A