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Association of demographic, clinical and treatment variables with quality of life of patients with epilepsy in Greece

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim was to study the influence of patients’ age, frequency and type of seizures, disease duration, number of AEDs and use of benzodiazepines on the quality of life of patients with epilepsy.

Patients and methods

We consecutively identified 223 patients with epilepsy who attended the epilepsy outpatient clinics at three university hospitals in Greece. Quality of life was evaluated by QOLIE-31. One-way analysis was used to assess the association of the studied factors and QOLIE-31 subscales. After checking for co-linearity, we performed multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis with all the variables that on univariate analysis showed a statistically significant effect on each subscale of QOLIE-31 to explore which of the studied factors affect independently on QOLIE-31 scores.

Results

Of a total of 223 patients, 118 (52.95%) were men; mean age was 35.18 ± 13.22; mean duration of the disease was 13 years; 58 (26%) patients had generalized seizures, 93 (41.7%) had PS, and 72 (32.3%) of the patients had PsG; 85 (38.1%) were on polytherapy and 38 (17%) were taking benzodiazepines. Independent factors affecting QoL were: seizure frequency (Overall QoL P = 0.0001, Seizure worry and Emotional well-being P < 0.0001, Energy/fatigue and Social functioning P = 0.01); duration of the disease (Overall QoL and Energy/fatigue P = 0.01, Seizure worry P = 0.008, Cognitive functioning P < 0.0001); polytherapy only for the Emotional well-being P < 0.0001; and use of benzodiazepines (Overall QoL, Energy/fatigue, Social functioning P = 0.002, Cognitive functioning P < 0.0001).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that QoL in epileptic patients might be affected, in addition to the other established factors (high frequency of seizures and polytherapy), by the daily use of benzodiazepines as adjunctive therapy. Change of medical strategy concerning this medication may lead to improving the QoL of these patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Democritus University of Thrace, University General Hospital, Alexandroupolis, Greece

    Charitomeni Piperidou, Aikaterini Terzoudi, Eleni Mavraki, Konstantinos Vadikolias & Ioannis Heliopoulos

  2. 1st Department of Neurology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, AHEPA Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Anna Karlovasitou, Evagelia Dimitrakoudi & Stavros Balogiannis

  3. Department of Neurology, Athens National University, Aeginition Hospital, Athens, Greece

    Nikolaos Triantafyllou & Dimitrios Vassilopoulos

  4. Department of Medical Statistics, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece

    Grigorios Trypsianis

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  1. Charitomeni Piperidou
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  2. Anna Karlovasitou
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Correspondence to Charitomeni Piperidou.

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Piperidou, C., Karlovasitou, A., Triantafyllou, N. et al. Association of demographic, clinical and treatment variables with quality of life of patients with epilepsy in Greece. Qual Life Res 17, 987–996 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-008-9375-9

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