Abstracts

Rationale: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological condition that requires active self-management to reduce personal and population burden. The CDC Managing Epilepsy Well (MEW) Network conducts prevention research on epilepsy self-management to address gaps related to public health practice. The MEW Network provides an infrastructure for un-funded investigators to collaborate with MEW Network investigators on projects of shared professional interest, such as on non-epileptic seizures (NES). While epilepsy and NES have overlapping features there has been limited work done comparing PWE and patients with NES. Given prior (but separate) studies on biological, personality, psychosocial and psychiatric determinants on health outcomes in people with epilepsy (PWE) and those with NES, we conducted an analysis of MEW Network integrated data and a well characterized sample of patients with NES. We compared descriptive data on samples with self-reported epilepsy and with documented NES. Based on the pooled data, we hypothesized that patients with NES would have lower (worse) QOL and depression scores than patients with epilepsy. Methods: We used data from the MEW Network integrated database involving 2 epilepsy self-management studies (WebEase and TIME) comprising 158 individuals with epilepsy. We conducted descriptive comparisons on 16 common data elements that included gender, age, ethnicity, race, education, employment, income, household composition, relationship status, age of seizure onset, frequency of seizures, seizure type, health status, healthy days, quality of life, and depression. Standardized rating scales for depression (the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire /PHQ-9, and BDI-II) and quality of life (QOLIE) were used. Results: MEW Network participants had a mean age of 41 (SD 13.35), 116 (73% women), 6 (4% African-American), 1 (0.6% Hispanic). In the PWE sample, 153 completed at least high school (97%), 83 (53%) were unmarried, divorced/separated, or widowed. Mean seizure frequency in the last 30 days was 9.89 (SD 29.09), and PWE had a mean score of 2.91 (SD 0.91) on the QOLIE-10. Patients with NES had a mean age of 37 (SD 14.23), 152 (74% women), 10 (5% African-American), 11 (5% Hispanic), 13 years of education, 124 (60% unmarried, divorce/separated, widowed), and 141 (68% unemployed). Mean seizure frequency was 31 (SD 44.79) seizures in the last 30 days, mean age of onset was 31 (SD15.71), mean BDI-II was 22 (SD 13.88) and patients with NES had a mean score of 51 (SD 25.70) on the health question on the QOLIE-31. Conclusions: PWE in the MEW Network are fairly well educated, mostly women, with few minorities. Rates of seizures are relatively high. In the NES sample, age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, education were similar to the PWE group. Patients with NES had frequent seizures, moderate depression and low QOL scores. Demographics are similar in both groups. QOL is lower than healthy controls in both groups.