Health locus of control in patients with epilepsy and its relationship to anxiety, depression, and seizure control

Anxiety disorders in people with epilepsy

“…State anxiety was significantly associated with symptomatic focal epilepsy, and trait anxiety with high seizure frequency, symptomatic focal epilepsy and female gender in a study from Greece (Kimiskidis et al, 2007). The coexistence of another chronic disorder does not seem to have an influence on the presence of anxiety symptoms in PWE (Asadi-Pooya et al, 2007) although poorer general health has been found as a contributing factor to anxiety (Jacoby et al, 2015). Good social support is, however, protective (Jacoby et al, 2015).…”

“…A problem is, however, that the findings of these studies were not consistent to each other and that the identified risk factors generally only explained a certain amount of the variance. A statistically significant relationship has been found between anxiety and higher scores relating to powerful-others Health Locus-of-Control (HLOC; see also below: Impact/Quality-of-life) (Asadi-Pooya et al, 2007). The presence of anxiety (and also depressive) disorders worsened adverse events to antiepileptic drugs (Kanner et al, 2010).…”

“…Health locus of control (HLOC) is a concept that concerns a person's beliefs regarding where control over his or her illness lies. Patients who attribute the control over their illness to so-called powerful others experience higher levels of anxiety (Asadi-Pooya et al, 2007). Self-perception of seizure precipitants also increased the anxiety level (Sperling et al, 2008).…”

Unpredictability of Seizures and the Burden of Epilepsy

“…The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scale comprises three subscales: internality (I-HLC), chance (C-HLC), doctors and powerful others (P-HLC) [52]. Studies examining the attitudes of patients with epilepsy revealed weak perception of internal and strong perception of external health locus of control [50,53,54]. This pattern of internality and externality may result in a less effective adaptation of these patients with epilepsy to their illness and a lower engagement in beneficial health behavior and active coping strategies [54].…”

“…About thirty percent of adult patients with epilepsy report suicide attempts [65], and the suicide rate of epilepsy patients is at least three times higher than that of the general population [66,67], particularly in women [68]. Loss of control is a major psychological factor leading to depression and anxiety [54,59]. Epilepsy patients have low internal control beliefs and medium beliefs in the role of chance.…”