Parents of children with epilepsy are optimistic for their children's health, but relatively pessimistic when compared with other parents.

We examined parents' perceived risk of their children encountering 10 general health conditions and 10 epilepsy-specific health problems using a standard optimistic bias question with standard responses. "Compared to other children of similar age, my child's chance of getting [problem, e.g., kidney disease] in the future is" (on a 7-point response scale) "much below average em leader average em leader much above average." "Pessimistic" parents were defined as those whose mean answers exceeded average risk. Parents demonstrated an optimistic bias for most health risks. For all the general health risks, the parents of children with epilepsy showed less optimistic bias (or pessimism) (P=0.001). Parents of children with epilepsy were much more likely to be "pessimistic" about future health risks (odds ratio 3.0, 95% CI: 1.1, 8.4) but showed an optimistic bias for the epilepsy-specific health risks. Parents of children with epilepsy appear to judge their children as more vulnerable to additional health problems when compared with parents of healthy children.