Evaluation of the Quality of Life in Epileptic Children of Shiraz, Southern Iran

OBJECTIVES: People suffering from chronic diseases like epilepsy are highly prone to debilitating changes in factors that affect the quality of life (QOL) such as physical capacity, self-esteem, relationships with others and fulfillment of their daily life activities. This study attempted to evaluate QOL in children with epilepsy in Shiraz, Southern Iran. MATERIALS & METHODS: Epileptic patients admitted at the epilepsy clinic of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences with no first time episode of seizures in the previous six months and no febrile-seizure were included in the study. The patients were evaluated using the standard KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire. Data were analyzed using the statistical software SPSS 21 along with Man Whitney and Chi-square tests, and were reported in terms of descriptive statistics. The significance level was considered less than 0.05. RESULTS: In this case-control study, 229 children with epilepsy were compared with a control group of 400 normal individuals. The mean age was 12.44±3.16 and 12.10±2.69 years in the case and control groups, respectively. The tonic-clonic seizure had the highest prevalence. Moreover, male gender, older age and more seizures per year were associated with lower QOL. Overall, epileptic children had significantly lower QOL compared to the controls. CONCLUSION: Epileptic children have an overall lower QOL while factors such as old age, male gender, and high number of seizures per year reduce QOL in epileptic patients.