Frequency of Psychiatric Comorbidities in Epilepsy in an Iranian Sample

Considering reports on the comorbidities of some psychiatricdisorders with epilepsy and in view of some variability in results and lack ofneeded data in the Iranian population, this study aimed at a further systematicevaluation of various major psychiatric disorders in epileptic patients andcompared the results with a control group. In this study, to assess mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders inpatients with epilepsy, 60 patients diagnosed with epilepsy and 60 controlindividuals matched on age and sex were selected. The case group wasconveniently selected from the patients referring to the Iranian EpilepsyAssociation and the clinic of neurology in Rasoul Akram Hospital, Tehran. Acontrol group whose age and gender were matched with the case group was alsoselected. Both groups underwent the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV(SCID-I). Each group included 30 males and 30 females. The mean age was31.0±8.97 in patients and 31.2±8.21 in controls. The lifetime prevalence of majorpsychiatric disorders including mood, anxiety and psychotic disorders, was68.3% in individuals with epilepsy and 36.7% in controls (OR=0.28, 95%CI=0.12-0.57, p<0.05). Among mood disorders, major depressive disorder (MDD)(OR=2.57, 95%CI=1.1 to 5.9, p<0.05) and depressive disorder not otherwisespecified (NOS) (p<0.05) prevailed significantly more in patients. Among anxietydisorders, only the frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) wasstatistically significant (OR=5.2, 95%CI=1.4 to 19, p<0.01). MDD is the most prevalent comorbidity while OCD and depressivedisorder NOS are in the second and third ranks. Therefore, in addition to themain psychiatric disorders, clinicians should pay enough attention to thesignificance of depressive disorder NOS. Further studies on community basedsamples, may result in more accurate findings concerning the target population