BACKGROUND: Epilepsy is a chronic neurologic disorder complicated by neurobehavioral comorbidities, including affective disorders, which adversely affect quality of life. There is increasing prevalence of these disorders in children especially in adolescents, however, the need for mental health care often remains unmet.

OBJECTIVES: The study determined the prevalence of anxiety and/or depression in adolescents with epilepsy and the association of these disorders with sociodemographic variables and seizure-related factors such as age of onset, duration of epilepsy, seizure frequency, electroencephalogram/neuroimaging abnormalities, type of epilepsy including epilepsy syndromes and drug treatment.

METHODOLOGY: This is an analytical, cross-sectional study. All adolescent patients with epilepsy seen at OPD who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria were screened using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)/ Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Pilipino (HADS-P). Charts of the patients at the Neurology section (Pay and Charity service) were reviewed. Epilepsy-related and sociodemographic variables in association with anxiety and depression were determined and analyzed.

RESULTS: A total of 145 adolescent patients were included in the study. There was a 17.4% prevalence of anxiety and 3.4% prevalence of depression in this study population according to the screening tool. However, a confirmatory diagnosis was not done in some patients. There was no significant factor associated with occurrence of anxiety. Factors that were highly associated with depression were a psychiatric illness in the first-degree relative, frequent seizures at onset, no anti-epileptic drug use, and monotherapy at the time of the study. Presence of anxiety also increased the odds of having depression.

CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATIONS: Affective disorders are common in adolescents with epilepsy and factors related to their occurrence must be anticipated. Hence, the need to screen the patients for psychiatric symptoms early and regularly.