Author(s)

Nasiru Olamide Madandola¹, Shehu Sale¹, Adebayo Sunday Adebisi^1*, Ayodele Obembe², Abdulfatai Tomori Bakare², Ishak Abioda Danjuma¹

¹Department of Psychiatry, Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kware, Sokoto, Nigeria.
²Department of Psychiatry, Usmanu Danfodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Nigeria.

Background: Anxiety may complicate epilepsy as is often the case out of the various psychiatric comorbidities patients can suffer from when they are suffering from epilepsy. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of anxiety among patients that had epilepsy and also to examine the associated socio-demographic and clinical factors that are associated with and eventually predictive of this psychiatric comorbidity. Materials and Method: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study that involved the use of General Health Questionnaire, version 28 (GHQ-28) and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), which were used independently to investigate each of the 400 consecutive participants in this study over a period of 24 weeks. The diagnosis of epilepsy was based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10) diagnostic criteria and all participants with anxiety were diagnosed using CIDI. A proforma Questionnaire was used to assess the socio-demographic and some clinical variables among patients. Logistic regression was done to determine the predictors of anxiety in the study participants. Results: When screened with GHQ-28, 71 people (17.8%) met criteria for caseness. When all the participants were examined using CIDI, 12 (3%) were diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. The variables found to be the predictors of anxiety were family history of psychiatric disorders (p = 0.045), fear of having seizure (p = 0.036) and GHQ caseness (p = 0.002). Conclusion: The study showed the existence of anxiety disorders among patients with seizure disorder. This is an important association with seizure disorders which is often overlooked. It will be beneficial to these patients if this co-morbidity is actively looked out for. Patients suffering from seizure disorder that have a family history of mental illness should be considered for an assessment of anxiety disorder. Psychological intervention for anticipatory fear of seizure should be employed by mental health professionals.

Epilepsy, Anxiety, Correlates, Nigeria

Madandola, N. , Sale, S. , Adebisi, A. , Obembe, A. , Bakare, A. and Danjuma, I. (2019) Correlates of Anxiety Disorder among Patients with Seizure Disorders in a Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Nigeria. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 9, 68-80. doi: 10.4236/ojpsych.2019.92006.