Frequency of Psychiatric Comorbidities in Epilepsy in an Iranian Sample

Objective: considering reports on the comorbidities of some psychiatric disorders with epilepsy and in view of some variability in results and lack of needed data in the iranian population, this study aimed at a further systematic evaluation of various major psychiatric disorders in epileptic patients and compared the results with a control group. method: in this study, to assess mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders in patients with epilepsy, 60 patients diagnosed with epilepsy and 60 control individuals matched on age and sex were selected. the case group was conveniently selected from the patients referring to the iranian epilepsy association and the clinic of neurology in rasoul akram hospital, tehran. a control group whose age and gender were matched with the case group was also selected. both groups underwent the structured clinical interview for dsm-iv (scid-i). results: each group included 30 males and 30 females. the mean age was 31.0±8.97 in patients and 31.2±8.21 in controls. the lifetime prevalence of major psychiatric disorders including mood, anxiety and psychotic disorders, was 68.3% 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 otherwise specified (nos) (p<0.05) prevailed significantly more in patients. among anxiety disorders, only the frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) was statistically significant (or=5.2, 95%ci=1.4 to 19, p<0.01). conclusions: mdd is the most prevalent comorbidity while ocd and depressive disorder nos are in the second and third ranks. therefore, in addition to the main psychiatric disorders, clinicians should pay enough attention to the significance of depressive disorder nos. further studies on community based samples, may result in more accurate findings concerning the target population