Quality of Life in Epilepsy: A Study of Brazilian Adolescents

Abstract

ObjectiveOur objectives were: to assess the QOL of Brazilian adolescents with epilepsy with a specific QOL assessment tool; to compare the adolescents with epilepsy and healthy adolescents using a generic QOL assessment tool; to correlate the 2 different QOL assessment tools (the generic and the epilepsy-specific); and to correlate QOL scores of the adolescents with epilepsy obtained by both tools with physical, psychological and social variables of the disease.MethodsFifty subjects (case group) attending the outpatient clinic of epilepsy of the Clinics Hospital of UNICAMP, Campinas-SP, answered the Brazilian version of the QOL inventory for adolescents with epilepsy - QOLIE-AD-48 and the QOL Questionnaire - WHOQOL – BREF – Portuguese version. Fifty-one subjects (control group) from public schools in Campinas-SP answered only the WHOQOL-BREF.ResultsThe results showed that adolescents with epilepsy presented a good score of QOL in both tools; overall scores for both groups with WHOQOL-BREF were good, but a statistically significant difference was seen with regards to the Psychological domain of the WHOQOL-BREF favoring the control group. Significant correlations between QOLIE-AD-48 Total and WHOQOL domains were found. Adolescents that were considered seizure-free (P = 0.001), had good perception of seizure control (P = 0.012) and had not had occurrence of seizures in public places (P = 0.001) presented better QOL scores.ConclusionsBrazilian adolescents with epilepsy may present good QOL scores when they themselves consider the disease as under control; physical, social and especially psychological variables associated to the disease may play an important role in these results. As a generic QOL tool, WHOQOL-BREF was sufficient to allow for a comparison between chronic disease bearers and healthy adolescents and showed that the gap in QOL between both populations is not as extensive as once was thought, probably due to better support and adaptation to the disease.

Evaluation of the quality of life related to health in adolescent patients with epilepsy through the application of the scale quality of life impact in epilepsy adolescents

“…In this study, demographic factors linked to the QoL in adolescent patients with an epilepsy diagnosis were analyzed, obtaining similar results to previous studies through the QoLIE-48 questionnaire (Table 3) [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] .…”

Health Related Quality of Life and Associated Factors among Epileptic Patients at Dessie Referral Hospital, Amhara Regional State, North East Ethiopia, 2020, A Cross Sectional Study. ​

“…On this ndings quality of life on physical domain mean ranked relatively higher (58.6) in the WHOQOL-BRIEF scaled scores when compared to the social (53.3), psychological (50.25%) and environmental domain mean (48.75), however the nding of this study on physical domain mean was lower than studies done in Brazil (72.76) (11). This might be due to the management approach for epilepsy in this hospital might not be focus on adopting a holistic approach that also incorporates their psychological, social and environmental needs rather than focusing only seizure control.…”

“…This may be due to research done in Mekelle city was used QOLIE-31 tool that was focus on the seizure worry, wellbeing, energy/fatigue, cognitive functioning and medication effect. This nding also lower than studies done in Brazil (68.73) (11) and Malaysia (68.9) (8). This difference might be due to those countries had better quality of health services, good socioeconomic status of the population than Africa population.…”

“…Epilepsy causes signi cant psychological and social consequences for everyday living condition and the illness tends to have life time effects on the patient and the family (10). QOL in epileptic patients remains an important area of research and the assessment of quality of life should not be only focus on the evaluation of seizures but it must be include other life domains such as physical, environmental, cognitive, emotional, socio-occupational functioning, health perceptions and general satisfaction with life (10), (11). The issue of QOL was increasing to be considered as an important measure of how the disease affects patients' quality of life, especially for chronic diseases such as epilepsy (1).…”

Stigma and polytherapy: Predictors of quality of life in patients with epilepsy from South India

“…[ 53 ] Better QOL was observed in seizure-free PWE who had good perception of seizure control and not experienced seizures in public places. [ 54 ] Improvement in QOL was observed in PWE who were seizure free for the last 12 weeks of 28-week clinical trial on antiepileptic drugs. [ 55 ] In our study, higher mean total QOL and subscale scores were observed in seizure-free PWE when compared to seizure-frequent PWE.…”