PREDICTORS OF QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH DRUG RESISTANT EPILEPSY AFTER NEUROSURGICAL TREATMENT: ONE-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

Background: Invasive neurosurgical treatment or minimally invasive neurosurgical treatment are methods of choice for the treatment of patients with drug resistant epilepsy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of neurosurgical treatment and the quality of life of patients with drug resistant epilepsy and to determine what are the potential predictors of quality of life of patients with drug resistant epilepsy one year after neurosurgical treatment. Subjects and methods: The research was performed at the Referral Centre for Epilepsy, Department of Neurology, University Hospital Centre Zagreb from February 2015 to February 2020 with Ethics commitee approval. The study included 96 patients with drug resistant epilepsy who were examined for the quality of life before and one year after neurosurgical treatment using the form questionnaire "Quality of life in epilepsy" (QOILE-31) validated Croatian 1.0 version and the questionnaire to assess the degree of depression "Beck Depression Inventory I" (BDI-I) validated Croatian version. Results: Of 96 patients with drug resistant epilepsy one year after neurosurgical treatment 46 (47.9%) patients remained completely free from epileptis seizures. Wilcoxon equivalent pair test showed that the number of epileptic seizures one year after neurosurgical treatment was significantly lower (median before neurosurgical treatment is 10; and after neurosurgical treatment is 1, p<0.001). The most informative potential statistically significant predictor variables of quality of life based on the criterion variables QOLIE-31 and BDI-I are: total disease duration in years (p=0.034), patient age (p=0.042), number of antiepileptics one year after neurosurgical treatment (p=0.001), the number of epileptic seizures per month (p=0.016), and social welfare rights (p=0.045). Conclusion: Neurosurgical treatment of patients with drug resistant epilepsy significantly reduces the number of epileptic seizures which significantly improves their overall quality of life one year after neurosurgical treatment.