Abstracts

Rationale: Depression is a significant psychiatric comorbidity among people with epilepsy (PWE) and is associated with poor quality of life (QOL), increased healthcare utilization, and poorer seizure control. It is critical to routinely screen for and treat depression and other psychiatric symptoms in PWE due to its implications in disease management, personal QOL, and utilization of public health resources. The widespread adoption of teleneurology in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic offers new benefits and challenges in screening and treating PWE. This study was performed to assess how well the University of Maryland epilepsy clinic adapted depression screening to the teleneurology format.

Methods: The epilepsy clinic notes for 284 patients seen between 7/5/2019 and 11/27/2019 (pre-COVID) and 307 patients seen between 4/1/2020 and 9/30/2020 (during COVID) were examined (n = 591). Data were collected on whether mood screening was performed and the presence or absence of mood symptoms.

Results: Outcome variables were subjected to chi-squared analysis. No significant differences between the two groups were found in the screening rate (87.7 vs 88.0, p = 1) or percentage of PWE reporting mood symptoms (27.7 vs 30.0, p = 0.7296).

Conclusions: PWE seen in a virtual epilepsy clinic were screened for and reported mood symptoms at comparable rates as patients seen in a traditional office setting. Our findings further validate telemedicine as an acceptable, high quality care model for PWE, and suggest that telemedicine may continue to be utilized as a viable alternative to the office setting for patients even as the COVID-19 pandemic abates.

Funding: Please list any funding that was received in support of this abstract.: No sources of funding to disclose.