Increased Seizure Risk Among the Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is a Single-Drug Regime Better?

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Increased stress, anxiety, depression, multi-anti-epileptic drug usage, and COVID-19 infection were all being related with an increased rate of seizures among subjects with epilepsy. Thus, in this study, we aimed to investigate whether social isolation increased the frequency of seizures among the cases with epilepsy during the COVID-19 pandemic and to define the possible underlying cause of it. METHODS: In this retrospective, cross-sectional study, 103 subjects with a diagnosis of epilepsy were included in the study. Hospital anxiety and depression scales were used to determine the underlying anxiety and depression. RESULTS: In this study, 58 out of 103 subjects were female and 51.4% of them had focal epilepsy. Subjects in focal and generalized epilepsy groups were similar based on age, gender, the presence of comorbid diseases, and anxiety and depression scores. However, the subjects presenting with increased rates of seizure had higher anxiety scores and more comorbid diseases, and in addition, the majority of them were on multi-anti-epileptic medications. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The risk of having an increased seizure rate was greater among the subjects with epilepsy who were on multi-anti-epileptic drugs and who had comorbid diseases and increased anxiety scores.

Keywords

• anxiety
• covid-19 infection
• depression
• epilepsy
• polypharmacy
• seizure rate
• social isolation
• stress.