Screening for Depression and Anxiety in Epilepsy

Depression and anxiety are common comorbidities of epilepsy and have far-reaching effects on patients, family, and the health care system. Although the burden of these conditions is high, a majority of cases are undetected and untreated. Screening tools can be a fast way to establish the presence of clinically relevant symptoms of depression and anxiety in epilepsy. Depression tools have been extensively studied in epilepsy, although no scale has been definitively established for use in this population. Anxiety has been understudied in epilepsy; few scales exist to measure anxiety and these scales have not been well validated.