Determinants of quality of life in people with epilepsy and their gender differences

Improving the patient's quality of life (QOL) is the most important goal of epilepsy management. We performed this study to determine the factors associated with QOL in people with epilepsy and to assess whether there are gender differences in these determinants. Patients were interviewed using the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-31(QOLIE-31), the Adverse Event Profile (AEP), the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD). Two hundred forty-seven patients (152 men, 95 women) were included in the analysis. Among all patients, regressive analyses showed that AEP score was the strongest predictor of the QOLIE-31 overall score, accounting for 10.4% of the variance. The next strongest predictors were the number of currently used antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) (3.6%), the HAMD score (2.5%), and the SAS score (1.2%). Importantly, there were gender differences in these predictors of QOL. The strongest predictors of the QOLIE-31 overall score in women were the AEP score and the number of AEDs. In contrast, the strongest predictors in men were the SAS score, the AEP score and the frequency of seizures. These results indicate that perceived adverse effects of treatments and number of AEDs exerted greater effects on QOL in women, whereas anxiety and seizure-related variables had a stronger impact on QOL among men. Accordingly, it may be necessary to individualize interventions to improve the QOL of people with epilepsy.