Epilepsy & behavior : E&B
July 16, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Quality of life and depressive symptoms in older adults: findings from an integrated epilepsy self-management data set.
Kiriakopoulos ET, Briggs F, Fiorelli N, +11 more, Sajatovic M.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
In older adults with epilepsy, depressive symptoms were strongly associated with worse quality of life.
What was studied
An analysis of baseline data from 198 adults aged 55+ in 13 US epilepsy self-management studies (MEW-DB).
Key findings
- Mean PHQ-9 8.3 (mild)
- Cognitive, somatic and total depressive symptoms associated with worse QOLIE-10
- Suicide ideation not associated with QoL
- Recent seizures associated with QoL only when depression terms excluded
Clinical relevance
Supports integrated mental health screening for older adults with epilepsy; cross-sectional data.
Who should care
Limitations
Cross-sectional pooled data.
Depression is a key driver of quality of life in older adults with epilepsy.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Background
In the U.S., about one million people with active epilepsy are adults aged 55+. Older adults with epilepsy (OAWE) experience complex health conditions that compromise quality of life (QOL). The contribution of depressive symptom dimensions to health-related QOL remains underexplored in OAWE.
Methods
We analyzed baseline data from 13 epilepsy self-management studies in the CDC-sponsored MEW-DB (Managing Epilepsy Well Database), including adults ages 55 and older (N = 198). The primary outcome was health-related QOL, assessed via the 10-item Quality of Life in Epilepsy scale (QOLIE-10), which was inverse rank normalized (mean = 0, SD = 1). Primary predictors included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) total score, cognitive and somatic symptom sub scores, and suicide ideation. Multivariable mixed-effects linear regression was used to assess associations. Models included a random intercept for originating study.
Results
Participants were x̄ = 60.8 years (range: 55-79); 60.6% female and 68.7% White. On average, participants had mild depressive symptoms (mean PHQ-9 = 8.3). Depressive symptom severity was significantly associated with worse QOL. Cognitive (β = 0.17 SD, 95% CI: 0.12-0.21, p = 5.6 × 10-13), somatic (β = 0.19 SD, 95% CI: 0.14-0.23, p = 3.3 × 10-17), and total depressive (PHQ-9 total) symptoms (β = 0.10 SD, 95% CI: 0.08-0.12, p = 3.8 × 10-21) were associated with worse QOLIE-10 total scores when adjusting for likely confounders. Suicide ideation was not associated with QOLIE-10 (β = 0.07 SD, 95% CI: -0.15 to 0.29, p = 0.51). Past 30-day seizure occurrence was associated with worse total QOLIE-10 only when depressive terms were excluded from the multivariable model (β = 0.38 SD, 95% CI: 0.05-0.72, p = 0.024).
Conclusions
Among OAWE, depressive symptoms are strongly linked to reduced QOL. These findings underscore the importance of integrated mental health screening and intervention for OAWE.
DOI
10.1016/j.yebeh.2026.111199
PMID
42462392
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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