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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: Epileptic patients as for the nature of their disease face difficulties in many areas of their lives. Stigmatization, social isolation, low socioeconomic status and psychiatric comorbidity are only some of these. Unfortunately psychiatric comorbidity is frequently unrecognized.
METHOD: 93 patients with diagnoses of epilepsy, followed by epilepsy outpatients' service of Baki rköy Prof. Dr. Mazhar Osman Mental Health and Neurological Diseases Hospital were accepted for our study. 30 epilepsy patients with psychiatric comorbidity were companioned with 30 epileptic patients without psychiatric comorbidity using WHOQL-BREEF quality of life scale.
FINDINGS: In this study 93 epilepsy patients have been interviewed of which 30 have comorbidity. That is a ratio of 32% of the patients having psychiatric comorbidity. In comorbidity case, orientation disorders are most often depression related. The higher chance of depression among epilepsy patients can be related to the following psychosocial reasons: lack of social support - low self-esteem - epilepsy related stigmatization - feeling of loss of control due to the epilepsy fits - inability to perform job or abilities because of disease In comorbidity problems most often we come across depression related orientation disorders. In this study on epileptic patients most often we see changes that are affected by the psychiatric disorder [especially depression]. Among the epilepsy patients that were measured according to WHOQL-BREF it was found that the patients that have comorbidity have the lowest quality of life.
DISCUSSION and Conclusion: It was found that epilepsy patients, who were not asked directly about it, didn't mention their psychological problems. Thus it was determined that it decreases their quality of life and increases the cost of treatment. Besides this especially epilepsy patients that have a postictal depression often attempt suicide. For this reason the patients coming to the epilepsy polyclinic need to be assessed in psychiatric meetings and the treatment of the established psychiatric disorders will not only significantly increase their quality of life but also prolong their life time.
Language: tr |