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Depression but not seizure factors or quality of life predicts suicidality in epilepsy

2012; Elsevier BV; Volume: 24; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.yebeh.2012.05.005

1525-5069

Hrvoje Hečimović, Julia Maria dos Santos, J. Carter, Hrayr Attarian, A. James Fessler, Victoria Vahle, Frank Gilliam,

Infectious Encephalopathies and Encephalitis

The objective of this study was to determine prevalence and predictive risk factors of suicidality in a large sample of epilepsy outpatients. We prospectively examined 193 consecutive adult epilepsy outpatients for depression, including suicidal ideation. Demographic and epilepsy factors, medication toxicity and health-related quality of life were also evaluated. The prevalence of suicidal ideation within the past two weeks was 11.9%. Although medication toxicity, health-related quality of life and BDI scores were each associated with suicidal ideation in the bivariate analyses, only the BDI remained significant in the logistic regression analysis. About one-fourth of the subjects with suicidal ideation had no significant symptoms of depression. Recent thoughts of suicide are a common occurrence in the outpatient epilepsy clinic setting, but these are not predicted by gender, age, seizure factors, medication toxicity or self-perceived quality of life. Although depression is associated with suicidal ideation, about one-fourth of the suicidal subjects were euthymic or only mildly depressed.