Abstracts

Research shows that epilepsy affects quality of life (QoL) in patients with epilepsy and their family members (Jacoby [rsquo]92, Baker [lsquo]97). QoL consists of health, family life, community, economics, and personal development variables. Studies of family functioning revealed that family members of patients with epilepsy scored in the unhealthy range on family dimensions (Krawetz [lsquo]01). We sought to assess the impact of family functioning, and QoL on individuals with epilepsy and their family.
The first ten patients to date in an ongoing study, between the ages of 18 and 90 years, diagnosed with epilepsy by history, physical, and electroencephalography (EEG) were administered a Family Assessment Device (FAD), Quality of Life in Epilepsy (QOLIE-31), Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ), and Seizure Diary upon entry into the Rhode Island Hospital Comprehensive Epilepsy Program. In addition, the individual[rsquo]s first degree relatives (and/or primary caretaker) completed the FAD to assess perception of family functioning, and was asked to assist in documenting the seizure frequency and current and past treatment history.
We compared family means of 9 patients with epilepsy and their family member to 9 age/sex/marital status matched patients with acute phase unipolar depression and their family, vs. 9 matched patients with acute phase bipolar disorder and their family, vs. 23 normal controls and their family.
Patients with epilepsy scored in the unhealthy range in the following areas: roles (4 of 9), affective involvement (3 of 9), and behavioral control (4 of 9). T-test comparisons revealed that baseline epilepsy family means were healthier than family means for patients with depression and bipolar disorder in the areas of communication, affective responsiveness, and behavioral control. Family means for the epilepsy group were healthier than normal controls in problem solving, communication, and affective responsiveness.
The preliminary findings reveal that individual patients with epilepsy report dysfunction within specific elements of family functioning. The disparate combined mean scores between epilepsy, clinical, and control families may be indicative of a subset of patients with epilepsy and their families with healthier family functioning in various subscales. This may be related to 1) sample size, or 2) selective bias in research cooperative patients. Alternatively, it may reflect family dynamic differences between phase of illness status, and/or illness severity in patients with well controlled or intractable epilepsy. This study is part of an ongoing assessment of family functioning, QoL, and seizure frequency in patients with epilepsy.
[Supported by: Rhode Island Hospital]