Abstracts

The aim of the study is to verify whether patients with drug resistant epilepsy and those with seizure free epilepsy adopt different coping styles in dealing with pathology, and to correlate the results to their psycho-social adjustment., The administered instruments were the following: the Raven[apos]s Coloured Progressive Matrices (non verbal intelligence), the Echelle Toulousaine de Coping [ndash]ETC- (Coping styles), the Self-esteem Questionnaire (self-esteem), the Self-efficacy Questionnaire (social self-efficacy), a Quality of Life measure and a semi-structured interview on psycho-social adjustment.
All these measures were administered to 50 drug resistant epilepsy and to 50 seizure-free patients., We found a significant difference in coping responses between the two groups: drug resistant patients adopted more the [ldquo]denial[rdquo] and the [ldquo]exclusion[rdquo] strategies (P[lt]0.05), on the contrary, seizure-free subjects used more the [ldquo]control[rdquo] (P[lt]0.05).
A significant correlation between disengagement patterns and poorer social outcomes was pointed out, while [ldquo]control[rdquo] was associated with a better social adaptation., Our findings provide evidence of the importance of coping assessment, considering the influence of these strategies on patients[apos] well-being. The possibility to offer to epilepsy patients a psychological support which orientates their coping styles, in order to alter them from the ineffective to the more efficacious ones should be considered.,