Epilepsy and children's social and psychological adjustment

This research investigates the effects of epilepsy on the social and psychological adjustment of the children studied in the National Health Interview Survey of 1988. Analyses examine the effect of epilepsy on four measures of adjustment--home behavior problems, school behavior problems, depressed mood, and impulsiveness. For each outcome, we address five questions: (1) Do children with currently active epilepsy have poorer adjustment than children with inactive epilepsy? (2) Do children with epilepsy fare worse than other children? (3) Do demographic background and family structure moderate the apparent effects of epilepsy? (4) Do family processes mediate the apparent effects of epilepsy? and (5) Do cooccurring conditions produce the apparent effects of epilepsy? Generally, we find that: (1) Children with active and inactive epilepsy fare about equally; (2) Children with any history of epilepsy fare worse than children without epilepsy; (3) Demographic and family background moderate only a small part of epilepsy's effect; and (4) A combination of family processes and cooccurring conditions appears to produce epilepsy's apparent effects.