Quality of Life for Patients with Epilepsy

Abstract

Epilepsy is one of the most important neurological diseases affecting human quality of life. Quality of life is influenced by many factors like seizure characteristic, stigma, fear and the presence of other psychological problems. This study was aiming to assess quality of life for patients with epilepsy and identify factors affecting their quality of life. This study was conducted on 100 patients during their follow-up visits to the Epilepsy Outpatient Clinic –Ain Shams University Hospitals. Data were collected using: 1) Interviewing questionnaire including the following parts A) Socio-demographic sheet. B) Factors that affecting quality of life for patients with epilepsy 2) Quality of life in epilepsy Scale. The result of this study showed that 84% of the patients with epilepsy were in poor level of overall quality of life. Furthermore, the mean scores, of all domains of quality of life were significantly low. Conclusion: The quality of life among the majority of the patients under study was poor and the quality of life was affected by many factors such as ; age, gender, level of education and residence; history of illness as characteristic of seizures ; presence of psychological, social, financial factors; knowledge and practices of the patients about their illness. Recommendations: Utilization of the study results in designing and implementing a counseling program geared towards patients with epilepsy to guide them on how to avoid and/or cope with factors affecting their quality of life in order to maintaining normal life style at highest possible level of quality of life.