Epilepsy characteristics and cognitive, social, and mood functions in relation to intrinsic religiosity

The purpose of the study was to relate the Intrinsic Religiosity Inventory (IRI) with clinical epilepsy variables, the occurrence of depressive symptoms, and the quality of life (QoL) of 169 adult people with epilepsy (PWEs). Data were compared with those of a similar control group (CG) without psychiatric disorders, with p < 0.05.

A higher intrinsic religiosity (IR) was observed in PWEs when compared with the CG. Impairment in multiple cognitive domains was found in 41 (24.2%) cases, and a score >15 in the Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy was observed in 44 (26%) cases. In PWE, a greater IR was associated with the use of more than one antiepileptic drug (AED), epileptiform activity (EA) in the left hemisphere, temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-HS), and the absence of depressive disorders. An early age of onset and the social functioning dimension of the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-31) were the predictive factors for a higher IR in the linear multivariate regression analysis.

The IR was significantly higher in PWE. A higher IR was related to TLE-HS, EA in the left hemisphere, later onset of epilepsy, a better performance in the semantic verbal fluency (SVF) test, and the absence of depressive disorders, suggesting a complex neurophysiological relationship involving multiple factors.