The relationship between psychiatric symptoms and the use of levetiracetam in people with epilepsy.

Mental health in people with epilepsy (PWE) is often overlooked, especially in developing countries. Consequently, the current work had two objectives: (1) to estimate the burden of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and stress, and (2) to examine the association of these psychiatric/psychological symptoms with levetiracetam and other relevant clinical factors in a cohort of Jordanian PWE. This is a cross-sectional study. The demographic and clinical data were recorded. Depression was measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9, Arabic-validated version) and anxiety by the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7, Arabic-validated version). The insomnia severity index (ISI-A, Arabic version) was used to assess sleep quality, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-A, Arabic version) was used to measure perceived stress. Data were analyzed from 280 patients, of which 178 (63.6%) received levetiracetam as monotherapy or as adjuvant. Depression was reported in 150 (53.6%), anxiety in 110 (39.3%), insomnia in 131 (46.8%), and clinically significant stress in 211 (75.4%). At univariate analysis, levetiracetam was not associated with psychiatric symptoms. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that severe depressive symptoms were associated with family history (OR = 2.47, 95% CI = 1.42-4.33, = .001) and seizure type (OR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.01-2.80, = .04), severe anxiety symptoms were associated with family history (OR = 1.90, 95% CI = 1.12-3.23, = .01), severe insomnia was associated with seizure type (OR = 2.16, 95% CI = 1.33-3.5, = .002) and severe stress was associated with marital status (OR = 2.37, 95% CI = 1.31-4.29, = .004). The high psychological burden of PWE is a challenging issue that requires attention and prompt action to control its risk factors. Levetiracetam was not associated with psychiatric symptoms in this study.