Parents’ Subjective Assessment of Effects of Antiepileptic Drug Discontinuation

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Many parents express worries about potential negative side effects of antiepileptic drugs (AED) on cognition, behavior, mood, and academic achievement. We aimed to evaluate parents’ subjective feelings about cognitive or behavioral changes in their children and their quality of life after antiepileptic drug (AED) discontinuation. METHODS: A modified questionnaire based on the Korean-Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy and the Korean-Child Behavior Checklist was answered by parents whose children were seizure-free over the course of 1 month after AED discontinuation. All children were seizure-free for at least 2 years before AED withdrawal. RESULTS: Fifty-eight eligible patients (mean age, 14.1 ± 4.5 years) were examined. Except valproate in cognition (p = 0.03), parents did not feel significant change after discontinuation of different drugs. They felt improvement of behavior in generalized epilepsy (p = 0.04) and better quality of life in children less than 6 year of age at diagnosis of epilepsy (p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: We propose that factors such as earlier age at diagnosis of epilepsy or type of epilepsy might influence parents’ subjective feelings about their children’s well-being after drug discontinuation, rather than the drug itself.