A hospital based cross sectional study on comorbid psychiatric problems in persons with epilepsy from north eastern part of India

Abstract

Abstract Context The relationship between epilepsy and psychiatric disorders has been recognized for a long time. Psychiatric disturbances like depression, anxiety disorder, psychosis, panic disorder, suicidal behavior etc are associated with epilepsy. Different demographic and clinical factors are associated with the onset of these psychiatric disturbances. Aims To study the prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity in persons with epilepsy. Also assess the different demographic and clinical factors and its relation with the presence of psychiatric comorbidity in persons with epilepsy. Settings and design It was a cross sectional observational study. Methods and material Diagnosed cases of epilepsy, attending Epilepsy Clinic, fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited for the study. Patients were evaluated with Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) to see their psychiatric comorbidities and also the socio-demographic and clinical factors were assessed Statistical analysis used SPSS version 23.0 for Windows and Graph Pad InStat software trial version 3.1 was used for analysis. Results Psychiatric comorbidity was seen in 50% subjects with comorbid with epilepsy. Depression 18%, Psychosis 14% and Anxiety Disorders 11%, were the most commonly found psychiatric morbidities. Presence of partial seizures, frequent seizures, long duration of epilepsy and poor compliance to antiepileptic drug were significantly associated with presence of psychiatric comorbidity in persons with epilepsy. Conclusions Psychiatric comorbidities are very common in epilepsy. Psychosis associated with epilepsy is seen more in hospital settings. Depression and anxiety though commonly reported in studies are less commonly presented to tertiary care settings.