Abstracts

Rationale: Data from chonic medical conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease suggest significant affects on the quality of life of the caregivers of the patients. While the effects of quality of life of patients with epilepsy has received much attention, not much is known about the variables that affect the quality of life of their caregivers. Not much is know about this in respect to the type of relationship. Methods: Patients with epilepsy (or their caregivers) were asked to complete a standard quality of life questionnaire (QOLIE-31-P;v2.1) and a seizure severity questionnaire in the clinic and their care givers were asked to complete a Zarit Burden Interview. We used a Zarit Burden Interview since there is no validated questionnaire to assess quality of life concerns of caregivers of patients with epilepsy and includes questions that touch on a range of issues that caregivers are faced with. The Zarit buden Interview assesses each question on a spectrum from "not at all" to "a little bit" to "moderately" to "quite a bit" to "extremely." We identified 29 patients that had completed questionnaires. We correlated seizure classification, seizure frequencies and severity to caregiver burden. We assessed caregiver burden in respect to their relationship to the patient ie. whether they were parents or spouses. Results: The mean age of all patients was 33 (M:F=13:16). 16 patients were accompanied to clinic by their parents (Group 1)and 13 were accompanied by their spouses (Group 2). From the Zarit Burden Interview we included answers to questions that the care givers thought moderately affected them. Caregivers of patients with daily seizures (Groups 1 and 2) had higher scores compared to caregivers of those whose seizures were less frequent. Please refer to table for results. Conclusions: We did not find significant differences in the the two groups with respect to many questions that might effect the burden on caregivers, except for the question related to the fear they felt for the future of their patient. Parent caregivers were more afraid for the future of their childern than spouses. We hypothesize that this may be related to the caregivers lifespan in relation to the patient. A larger study to evaluate the role of support groups, counseling and learning coping mechanisms would help assess their role on reducing the burden on caregivers of patients with epilepsy.