Psychopathology in children with epilepsy: meta-analysis findings and family factors

¶ … Psychopathology in children with epilepsy: A meta-analysis" consists of a review of scholarly literature published between 1970-2003 in the PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) on the subject of children with epilepsy. Its purpose was to determine the severity of psychopathology of children with epilepsy vs. The normative healthy population; to compare the symptoms of children with epilepsy vs. children with other chronic illnesses; and to examine the different symptoms of children with epilepsy with their siblings.

The existing evidence suggests that children with epilepsy exhibit higher degrees of psychopathology than the general population of children. "This was true for parent report, teacher report, and self-report" (Rodenburg 2005: 461). Attention-deficit related problems and somaticizing problems were particularly common amongst epileptic children. But children with other chronic conditions such as diabetes and asthma did not show higher rates of psychopathology. Given that children with chronic conditions that were not neurological in nature did not show such marked psychopathology while children with neurological disorders other than epilepsy were also at higher risk for psychopathology, this initially suggested that the physiology of the condition vs. The challenges of living with a chronic disease were the exacerbating causal factors of the abnormal behavior.

Fewer studies existed regarding the siblings of children with epilepsy. However, "several studies found that siblings of children with epilepsy, but also siblings of children with other chronic illnesses, were at higher risk for psychopathology" although this was unclear if this was due to parent's greater tendency to report problems in their children due to having a child with a chronic condition (Rodenburg 2005: 462). This finding suggests that family problems may still be a factor which contribute to manifestations of psychopathology in families with epileptic children. In other words, although genetics and physiological factors may be critical in the manifestation of pathophysiology, the evidence of pathophysiology in non-epileptic siblings suggested to the researchers that social factors should not be discounted. Factors such as "unpredictability, distress, medication regimen, social stigma, and family stress" can still have an impact on families (Rodenburg 2005: 462).