Influence of clinical, demographic, and socioeconomic variables on quality of life in patients with epilepsy: findings from Georgian study

Abstract

Objective: To identify the clinical, demographic, and socioeconomic factors that are associated with a poor quality of life in patients with epilepsy in Georgia. Methods: Clinical, demographic, and socioeconomic status data were collected from 115 adult epileptic outpatients being treated in the epilepsy programme at the Sarajishvili Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery (SINN) in Tbilisi, Georgia. Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) was measured by the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-31). Multiple regression analysis was used to determine which variables were associated with QOLIE-31 total and subcomponent scores. Results: Mean age of the patient population was 37.9 (SD 15.8) years; 43.5% were females; 51.8% did not have a partner; 39.1% had some university education; 82.6% were unemployed. Of 115 epileptic patients 83.3% had partial, and 16.7% had generalised seizures. Overall, 32.2% of patients were seizure free, and 28.7% experienced more than 10 seizures over the past year. The variables that most strongly predicted a lower QOLIE-31 total score were a low education level, high seizure frequency, and long duration of epilepsy. The QOLIE-31 all subcomponent scores correlated strongly with seizure frequency. Advanced age was a significant predictor for a low overall quality of life, energy/fatigue, and cognitive scores. Female sex was the factor that significantly predicted a low seizure worry score. Education level strongly correlated with overall quality of life, and cognitive and social functioning scores. Conclusions: Clinical factors such as high seizure frequency and long duration of epilepsy had a significant influence on HRQL. Advanced age, female sex, and a low education level were the demographic factors that correlated strongly with low quality of life scores.

Quality of life in epilepsy

“…The differences were highly statistically significant on ANOVA (p value<0.001).This shows that education improves quality of life. Similar results were reported by Choi-Kwon S et al 11 Frequency of seizures per month was positively correlated with QOLIE-9 total scores (Pearson Correlation 0.622) and was highly statistically significant (p value <0.001), as also reported by Djibuti et al and Thomas et al 2,10 Duration of illness positively correlated with QOLIE-9 total scores (Pearson Correlation 0.118) and but was statistically insignificant (p value 0.242). Szaflarski et al found poor quality of life with increase duration of illness.…”

“…In this study mean QOLIE-9 total scores were higher in women (21.03) than men (19.17) but not statistically significant (p value 0.081). 10 Mean QOLIE-9 total scores were 16.66, 19.74, 20.13 and 24.00 in married, widows, unmarried and separated individuals respectively. The differences in the means were statistically significant on ANOVA (p value 0.002).This implies that marriage confers some benefit to quality of life.…”

Epilepsy and quality of life: socio-demographic and clinical aspects, and psychiatric co-morbidity

“…Similarly to some studies 10 , no significant difference was found in the QoL due to the other socio-demographic aspects studied, although other papers 5,[7][8][9]15 reported that an elevated age and low scholastic level were related to a worse QoL.…”

“…dimensions of cognitive function, energy/fatigue and overall score, a fact already documented in the literature [4][5][6]9,10,13,16 . Besides, a sustained improvement in QoL was associated with long-term absolute freedom from ES 4,11 .…”

“…Some studies described very low QoL values for female epileptic patients and for females in the general population 9,26 . These lower values could be attributed to different cultures and social support, or could be related to problems with pregnancy and epilepsy 6,8 .…”