Sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with depression in epilepsy

The impact of mood disorders on patients with epilepsy is an important and growing area of research. If clinicians are adept at recognizing which patients with epilepsy are at risk for mood disorders, treatment can be facilitated and morbidity avoided. We completed a case–control study (80 depressed subjects, 141 nondepressed subjects) to determine the sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with self-reported depression in people with epilepsy. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 was used to determine clinically significant depression. In multivariate analyses, depressed subjects with epilepsy were significantly less likely than nondepressed subjects to be married or employed and more likely to report comorbid medical problems and active seizures in the past 6 months. Adjusted for all other variables, subjects with epilepsy reporting lamotrigine use were significantly less likely to be depressed (OR = 0.4, 95% CI: 0.2–0.8) compared with those not reporting lamotrigine use.