A new study looking at adults with newly diagnosed epilepsy shows mental health issues can arise early in epilepsy.
The systematic review, published by researchers Venus Tang and colleagues in the journal Epilepsia, pulls together evidence from different studies showing that mental health problems can start early into a person’s epilepsy diagnosis, or even before it.
Mental health in newly diagnosed epilepsy
The researchers used 21 publications from across 10 countries, covering 4,728 adults. Of the papers, 14 looked at depressive symptoms in adults with newly diagnosed epilepsy, finding that between one in 10 (11%) and one in two (50%) of people experienced these.
Anxiety symptoms were also among the more commonly studied, with 11 of the papers including these. Between a quarter (25%) and around a third (35%) of adults with newly diagnosed epilepsy had these symptoms.
Two papers used structured diagnostic tools, finding that 2.9-13.3% newly diagnosed people had clinical depression and around a quarter had anxiety or neurotic disorders.
Between a quarter and half of the people also felt like there was stigma around their epilepsy, which was one of the factors worsening their quality of life.
The researchers conclude that this shows that mental health conditions are substantial and present early for people newly diagnosed with epilepsy.
They stressed that screening and diagnosis for mental health should be integrated early into the epilepsy care pathways. Education around these mental health risks should also be given to increase awareness and access to services for people, the researchers added.
Epilepsy and mental health conditions
Epilepsy is known to be linked with mental health conditions. Living with epilepsy can take its toll on people’s mental health, epilepsy medications can sometimes impact a person’s mental health, or there could be a shared mechanism between epilepsy and conditions like depression and anxiety.
Around a third of people with epilepsy also get depression, which is nearly three times as much as the general population. This is a two-way link, meaning that people who have depression are also more likely to have epilepsy than the general population.
Epilepsy Action has more information on epilepsy and depression, as well as self-help, treatments and more information sources.
People with epilepsy are also more at risk of anxiety than the general population, with a study suggesting one in three people with epilepsy also have anxiety.
Anxiety can be part of a seizure, caused be epilepsy medication, or can be the result of having epilepsy. There is more information on the Epilepsy Action website around epilepsy and anxiety.
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