Abstracts

Rationale: At baseline, children aged 8-18 with recent onset idiopathic epilepsy (<12 months since diagnoses) were noted to exhibit learning problems and ADHD (Hermann et al., 2006; Jones et al., 2007). These children were re-evaluated following a 2-year interval to monitor the trajectory of their psychiatric comorbidity. Methods: Participants were 66 children with recent onset epilepsy and 57 healthy cousin controls with a mean age of 14 years at follow-up. Children participated in the follow-up evaluation 2 years after the baseline evaluation. At baseline and follow-up, all participants and their parents underwent a standardized psychiatric interview to characterize DSM-IV diagnoses using the K-SADS. Learning problems were defined as special education, assistance in reading and math, mandatory summer school, tutors or grade retention. Based on the baseline diagnoses, children were placed into the following groups: healthy cousin controls, epilepsy-no ADHD or learning problems (epi-), epilepsy with learning problems and no ADHD (epi LP), epilepsy with ADHD (epi ADHD). Based on the follow-up interview, DSM-IV diagnoses were examined in the following categories: interval and current diagnoses. Results: At baseline among the children with epilepsy, 30 (45%) children were epi-, 17 (26%) children were epi LP, and 19 (29%) children were epi ADHD. In terms of diagnoses that were present during the 2-year interval, 25% of controls met criteria for any DSM-IV disorder, as well as 53% of the epi-, 53% of the epi LP, and 100% of the epi ADHD (p = 0001). When current diagnoses were examined at follow-up, 19% of the controls, 33% of the epi-, 47% of the epi LP, and 84.2% epi ADHD met criteria for any DSM-IV disorder (p = 0001). Conclusions: In this study we followed children with recent onset epilepsy who were subdivided into groups based on the presence or absence of learning problems or ADHD at baseline and evaluated DSM-IV diagnoses over time to identify any changes. All children with epilepsy, regardless of their baseline status, did not demonstrate progression over time in terms of interval and current psychiatric diagnoses evaluated at the 2- year follow-up. The presence or absence of learning problems or ADHD does not appear to negatively impact psychiatric comorbidity over time.