Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Discrimination, domestic violence, abuse, and other adverse life events in people with epilepsy: Population-based study to assess the burden of these events and their contribution to psychopathology

Nimmo-Smith, Victoria, Brugha, Traolach S., Kerr, Michael Patrick, McManus, Sally and Rai, Dheeraj 2016. Discrimination, domestic violence, abuse, and other adverse life events in people with epilepsy: Population-based study to assess the burden of these events and their contribution to psychopathology. Epilepsia 57 (11) , pp. 1870-1878. 10.1111/epi.13561

[thumbnail of Nimmo-SmithTEXTrevised_9 8 16 CLEAN.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version
Download (507kB) | Preview

Abstract

Objective To quantify the experience of discrimination, domestic violence, abuse, and other stressful life events in people with epilepsy in comparison with the general population and people with other chronic conditions. To assess whether any excess relative burden of these adversities could explain the higher rates of depression in people with epilepsy. Methods The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2007 used comprehensive interviews with 7,403 individuals living in private residences in England. Doctor-diagnosed epilepsy and other chronic conditions were established by self-report. Discrimination, domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse, and other stressful life events were assessed using computerized self-completion and a face-to-face interview, respectively. Results People with epilepsy were sevenfold more likely to have reported experiencing discrimination due to health problems (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 7.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.1–16.3), than the general population without epilepsy. This estimate was substantially greater in people with epilepsy than for people with other chronic conditions. People with epilepsy also had greater odds of experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse than the general population, although these associations were also found in people with other chronic conditions. There was less evidence of an association between epilepsy and a history of physical abuse or having a greater burden of other stressful life events. In exploratory analyses, assuming they lie on the causal pathway, discrimination, domestic violence, and sexual abuse explained 42.7% of the total effect of the relationship between epilepsy and depression or anxiety disorders. Significance People with epilepsy can face a range of psychosocial adversities and extensively report feeling discriminated against as compared to the general population. In addition, if confirmed in longitudinal studies, the results suggest that these psychosocial adversities may have a significant role in the development of psychiatric comorbidity and may be targets for future interventions.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG)
Medicine
Subjects: R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Publisher: Wiley
ISSN: 0013-9580
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 10 November 2016
Date of Acceptance: 15 August 2016
Last Modified: 06 Nov 2023 14:56
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/95989

Citation Data

Cited 16 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics