Impact of depression and anxiety on adverse event profiles in Korean people with epilepsy

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that depression and anxiety worsen the adverse events associated with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in people with epilepsy. These studies used the Liverpool Adverse Events Profile (LAEP) to screen adverse events. The LAEP incorporates items associated with emotion, which may themselves influence the reporting of adverse events. We investigated whether depression and anxiety still displayed an effect on adverse events when items related to emotion were excluded from the analysis. A total of 453 consecutive patients with epilepsy who took AEDs for at least 1year completed self-report questionnaires, including the Korean versions of the LAEP (K-LAEP), the Beck Depression Inventory (K-BDI), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (K-BAI). Firstly, we performed a discrimination analysis to identify the items affected by depression and/or anxiety among the 19 items included in the K-LAEP. Among these items, dizziness, nervousness and/or agitation, restlessness, and upset stomach had relatively higher levels of significance. Secondly, we performed a factor analysis to determine the subclass taxonomy of all items in the K-LAEP. The analysis segregated the items into three subclasses: cephalgia/coordination/sleep, emotion/cognition, and tegument/mucosa/weight. Lastly, we performed stepwise multiple regressions to demonstrate the predictors determining the K-LAEP and subclass scores. According to the regressions, the K-BAI and K-BDI scores and the duration of treatment of the antiepileptic medication were significant predictors. Specifically, the K-BAI score was a predictor of the scores of all three subclasses as well as the total K-LAEP score; the K-BDI score was a predictor of the total K-LAEP score and the emotion/cognition score; and the duration of treatment of the antiepileptic medication was a predictor of the tegument/mucosa/weight score. The K-BAI score was the strongest predictor of all the scores. Although this study showed a similar impact of depression and anxiety on the adverse event profiles as previous reports, it provided further insight into the contribution of the LAEP items associated with emotion. Other than the psychosocial predictors, the treatment duration of the antiepileptic medication was also found to be an important predictor in this study.

Keywords: Adverse event; Antiepileptic drug; Anxiety; Depression; Epilepsy; Factor analysis; Quality of life.