Abstracts

Rationale: In most chronic conditions, disadvantaged groups typically report lower health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and poorer health outcomes than groups with better socioeconomic status, higher education and ethnic majority status. In pediatric epilepsy, the relationship between demographic factors and HRQOL has not yet been systematically studied, despite the potential benefits of early identification of demographic subgroups at risk for poor HRQOL.Methods: In 163 Canadian children with intractable epilepsy, we retrospectively evaluated the relationship between HRQOL and a broad spectrum of demographic variables (gender, age, socioeconomic status, parental education, marital status, family size, and ethnic and linguistic status), in relation to known neurological and behavioral correlates of HRQOL.Results: No demographic variable was related to child HRQOL, except for marital status, where children from divorced/separated parents had significantly lower HRQOL. However, marital status was not significantly predictive of HRQOL when the variance attributed to neurological and behavioral variables was taken into account. Exploratory analyses indicated that children of separated/divorced parents were more likely to have early epilepsy onset, lower adaptive/developmental levels, and worse seizure frequency, suggesting that severe epilepsy may be a risk factor for marital stress.Conclusions: Contrary to research in other chronic conditions, sociodemographic variables accounted for only a modest amount of HRQOL in children with severe epilepsy, and were weak predictors of HRQOL in comparison to neurological and behavioral variables. The results are discussed with regard to epilepsy-specific determinants of HRQOL and sociodemographic factors that may influence HRQOL.