Hamood Al Kiyumi, Salim Al Huseini, Asaad Al, Khalid Al Risi, Hassan Mirza, Amira Al Hosni and Sanjay Jaju
Oman Medical Specialty Board, Oman
Sohar Hospital, Oman
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Clin Exp Psychol
Objectives: Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder in children. Many studies have proven that
depression is common in children with epilepsy.
Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the proportion of depressive symptoms along with demographic data in
children diagnosed with epilepsy in a tertiary care institution in Oman.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between June 2016 and August 2018. We have included 75
children with age group from five to 12 years old, attending epilepsy clinic at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital
who were diagnosed with epilepsy and already on treatment. Patients were excluded if they have mental retardation.
Validated Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) questionnaire was utilized to assess the level of depressive
symptoms among children. In addition, we have looked at associated factors including seizure status in the last three
months, compliance to antiepileptic medications, type of epilepsy and number of antiepileptic medications.
Results: In this study, we found that depressive symptoms were present in 39 (52%) of patients. We also found that
96% of the patients were compliant to medications. In addition, seizure was present in the last three months in 48%
of the sample studies. There was no statistically significant association between any of the studied variables and
depression.
Conclusions: Although depression is highly prevalent in children with epilepsy, this study did not find any significant
association between the CES-DC scores and the studied factors.
Hamood Alkiyumi is a senior Psychiatry Resident at Oman Medical Specialty Board in Sultanate of Oman. He is also a Registered doctor at Ministry of Health in the Sultanate. His research interests are child Psychiatry disorders and stress management programs for healthy individuals and people with mental disorders. Recently, he has focused more on psychological interventions for people with depression.
E-mail: hamood.k@resident.omsb.org
