The predictors of psychiatric disorders among people living with epilepsy as seen in a Nigerian Tertiary Health Institution

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders may complicate epilepsy which can further impair the quality of life of people living with this chronic neurological condition. The aim of this study was to determine the types of psychiatric disorders in patients with epilepsy and to determine the sociodemographic and clinical factors that may predict these psychiatric illnesses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out over a period of 6 months at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi, Nigeria. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used to determine the psychological health of 74 consecutively recruited adult patients with epilepsy attending the psychiatric outpatients' clinic of the hospital. Psychiatric diagnoses were based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4(th) Edition criteria, and logistic regression analysis was done to determine variables that predict psychiatric disorder. RESULTS: Majority of the participants were male (67.6%) with their age ranging from 18 to 68 years and the mean age of 30.55 ± 10.91 years. Thirty-three (44.6%) of our study respondents had psychiatric diagnoses that included major depressive disorder (21.6%), schizophrenia (17.6%), generalized anxiety disorder (4.1%), and hypomania (1.4%). Being unemployed (odds ratio [OR] = 3.24. 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15–9.10, P = 0.026) and short-term seizure free period (OR = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.04–0.78, P = 0.022) were the variables found to be predictive of psychiatric diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed that a large percentage of people living with epilepsy develop mental disorders which can further increase the burden and worsen the quality of life of patients with this chronic debilitating condition.