Depression in Epilepsy

Epilepsy News From: Wednesday, January 09, 2013

In the November 20th issue of the journal Neurology, Drs. Fiest and colleagues from the Departments of Community Health Science, Psychiatry, Clinical Neurosciences, Medicine, from the University of Calgary and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and Institute of Public Health and School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo, Canada, present an important analysis in which they reviewed previously published studies looking at depression in epilepsy and summarize them to estimate how common depression occurs in persons with epilepsy over the course of one’s life.

The Study

The investigators conducted an exhaustive search of the medical reference databases for research investigations that were population based, original, and reported specifically on the relationship between epilepsy and depression. From that they were able to estimate the commonality of depression among individuals with epilepsy and estimate the association between epilepsy and depression.

It's Findings

Of 7,106 studies screened, 23 of these reported enough information that an estimation or calculation could be performed. Nine studies had 29,891 persons with epilepsy who had a prevalence of active depression of almost 23.1%, almost a quarter of the individuals with epilepsy reporting depression. Five of the 14 studies reported on almost a million individuals with a risk of depression of 2.77 in individuals with epilepsy. For lifetime depression, four studies reported on almost 5,454 individuals with a prevalence rate of 13% and three studies reported on 4,195 individuals with an overall odds ratio of 2.20%.

The investigators concluded that epilepsy is clearly significantly associated with depression and depression is very prevalent in individuals with epilepsy.

Call to Action

This study is important because it once again highlights the fact that epilepsy is a spectrum condition of which seizures is certainly the center piece yet other problems such as depression are almost as frequent. This is another call to action for the medical community to make certain that when an individual with epilepsy is being treated that the depression which is so highly common as evidenced by this analysis is also being evaluated and treated as well.

Authored by

Joseph I. Sirven MD

Reviewed Date

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

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