Tharakan, John
(2009)
Quality of life following resective surgery: Initial outcomes.
In: 28th International Epilepsy Congress, 28 June- 2 July 2009, Budapest, Hungary.
(Submitted)
Abstract
To determine the effect of surgery on the quality of life of patients diagnosed with
drug-resistant epilepsy. Twelve patients, 9 males and 3 females (29.92±320 years) with refractory epilepsy
who underwent amygdalohippocampectomy during the-period 2003-2007 and completed a
minimum 1 year follow-up were included in the study. Illness duration was 16.83±3.41 years.
Four of the patients had surgery on the left side, and the rest, on the right hemisphere. Quality
of life was assessed using the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-31 (QOLIE-31 ), a Likert type
scale, administered pre- and 1 year post-surgery. A 1-way ANOVA with repeated
measures was used to determine the differences in selected subscales for normally distributed
data. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was employed for ordinal data. Significance level was
set to 0.05. There were significant differences in seizure score after surgery (pre-surgery:
8.17±. 72, post-surgery: 1.92±.69, p=0.002, r=0.892). However, there were no significant
changes over time in subscales assessing seizure worry (pre-surgery: 44.08±2.90, post surgery:
47.75±3.36, p=0.453, eta~.052), cognitive functioning (pre-surgery: 48.50±2.74,
post-surgery: 48.75±329, p=0.932, eta~.001) and Social functioning (pre-surgery:
47.75±2.34, post-surgery: 49.42±2.85, p=0.606, eta~.025). In spite of significant differences in seizure score, the quality of life markers did
not change accordingly. 'the small sample size may have been prohibitive in terms of
reaching statistically significant differences over time. Other possible explanations offered for
the discrepancy between the results of this study and what was reported in the literature
include shorter post-assessment period and alternative quality of life assessment tool.
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