title: Factors associated with generic and disease-specific quality of life in epilepsy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the association between quality of life (QOL) and sociodemographic factors, clinical seizure factors, depression and anxiety in patients suffering from epilepsy.
  
  
  METHODS
  We examined 141 consecutive patients with epilepsy (mean age 25.8±9.6, 61.7% male). All patients completed the Self-Rating Depression Scale, Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, WHOQOL-BREF and QOLIE-31(Chinese version). Multiple linear regression analyses were applied to investigate factors impact on QOL.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results revealed that scores on two domains of the WHOQOL-BREF (i.e., physical and psychological domains, P<0.05) were significantly lower in the epilepsy group compared with the control group. Multiple regression analyses showed that anxiety, depression and course explained approximately 40% of the variance in patients' QOL. Anxiety was consistently the strongest predictor of lower scores on almost all QOL domains. In addition, the severity of depressive symptoms was significantly associated with lower scores across many QOL domains.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that QOLIE scores might be substantially affected by the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms and, to a lesser degree, of depressive symptoms and prolonged course of illness. In contrast, clinical seizure variables had a weaker association with QOL. Healthcare professionals should be aware of the significance of patients' emotional state and of the role it plays in their QOL.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Union Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China. hh-p@163.com
authors.forename: HuaPin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: ChunHui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Che
authors.forename: ChangYun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: XiaoHong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Mao
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000473:pathology; D003863:Depression / Q000473:pathology; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult