Health-related Quality of Life in Adults with Epilepsy: the Effect of Age, Age at Onset and Duration of Epilepsy in a Multicentre Italian Study

Overview

Journal BMC Neurol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Neurology

Date 2011 Mar 12

PMID 21392391

Citations 17

Authors

Valeria Edefonti

Francesca Bravi

Katherine Turner

Ettore Beghi

Maria Paola Canevini

Monica Ferraroni

Ada Piazzini

Affiliations

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Abstract

Background: The potential effect of age-related factors on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with epilepsy has rarely been analyzed in the literature.

Methods: We examined this association in a selected population of 815 adults with epilepsy recruited in the context of a multicentre study for the evaluation of Epi-QoL, one of the first Italian epilepsy-specific measures of HRQOL for adults with epilepsy. The Epi-QoL is a 46-item self-administered questionnaire focusing on six domains, which was successfully tested for reproducibility and validity. Ordinary least-squares regression models were used to assess the relationships between age-related factors (patient's age, age at seizure onset, and duration of epilepsy) and overall Epi-QoL score, controlling for the effect of potential confounders. We fitted simple regression models including each age-related factor alone to assess the independent role of each factor on the overall Epi-QoL score. We also fitted multiple regression models including pairs of age-related factors solely, as well as one or two age-related factors together with the same set of confounders.

Results: Simple regression models showed that age and duration of epilepsy were significant negative predictors of the overall Epi-QoL score: the higher was each age-related factor, the lower was the overall Epi-QoL score; age at onset alone was a nonsignificant predictor of the overall Epi-QoL score. Multiple regression models including two age-related factors solely showed that duration of epilepsy was still a significant negative predictor of the overall Epi-QoL score in both pairwise models, whereas age was a significant negative predictor only in the model including age at onset. Age at onset emerged as a significant positive predictor of the overall Epi-QoL score only in the model including age: the higher was age at onset, the higher was the overall Epi-QoL score. Adjusted regression models including either one or two age-related factors and controlling for the selected confounding variables showed that the age-related factors had no significant effect on the overall Epi-QoL score anymore.

Conclusions: If no other known correlates of the overall Epi-QoL score are considered, age and duration of epilepsy can be expected to have a significant negative association with HRQOL in epilepsy (with the effect of duration being stronger and more consistent across models than the one of age), whereas age at onset is a positive predictor of the overall HRQOL of limited significance. However, demographic and clinical factors, such as seizure frequency in the preceding 12 months, may provide a better explanation of HRQOL in epilepsy.

Citing Articles

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Annaka H, Nomura T, Hasegawa N Front Neurol. 2024; 15:1443903.

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Determinants of the Quality of Life in Patients with Drug-Resistant Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Comparison of the Results before and after Surgery.

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Tanveer M, Tahir A, Iqbal M, Aslam F, Ahmed A Brain Behav. 2023; 13(9):e3127.

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Stress phenotypes in epilepsy: impact on cognitive functioning and quality of life.

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Influence of Clinical Factors on the Quality of Life in Romanian People with Epilepsy-A Follow-Up Study in Real-Life Clinical Practice.

Cioriceanu I, Constantin D, Bobescu E, Marceanu L, Rogozea L J Pers Med. 2023; 13(5).

PMID: 37240922 PMC: 10219349. DOI: 10.3390/jpm13050752.

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