Abstracts

Rationale: Psychiatric co morbidities are frequent patients with epilepsy, frequently they are under diagnosed and under treated. The quality of life of epilepsy children is highly impacted because of them. In our effort to improve the life’s of children with epilepsy we have created a pediatric epilepsy psychiatry clinic, to evaluate all the children undergoing for epilepsy surgery at our institution. Methods: Review of all the outpatient child psychiatry pre-surgery evaluations from 2007-2009 Results: Eighty three patients were evaluated, between the ages 5-18; the most frequent co morbidities were Anxiety disorders in 48%, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorders in 33%, mood disorders 15%, and autistic spectrum disorders 15%. Some of these patients were already evaluated at other institutions by other psychiatrist, but remained untreated secondary to the epilepsy Conclusions: It has been reported that managing the psychiatric co morbidities in epileptic patients, improve the quality of life, the school performance and the family interactions. Doctors remain reluctant to use psychotropic medications even when needed. The role of the psychiatrist in the epilepsy team, can help understand the co morbidities of the epilepsy patients, offer treatment either pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy as well to understand how the psychiatric co morbidities may affect the outcome post surgery. Integrated clinical service teams in epilepsy are essential to achieving the goal of evidence based practice in this population.