COVID-19 Pandemic Effects on Epileptic Children and Interleukin 6 Levels in Recently Diagnosed Epileptic Patients: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Abstract Background Epilepsy is a disease with wide range of definitions. It is considered a multifactorial condition that may present at various ages and in many forms, which makes it challenging for physicians. In late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) emerged as a novel coronavirus. Both epilepsy and COVID-19 can be linked in more than one way. Aim of the Study To Determine the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the health-related quality of life and psychosocial aspects of children with epilepsy & to Determine whether COVID-19 infection is an inflicting cause for epilepsy in newly diagnosed cases. Patients and Methods We interviewed 50 patients with Epilepsy and their parents, for the blood tests we sampled 40 and 40 close relatives with no medical condition of similar age and sex. Results 50 subjects’ results were demonstrated, 28 males and 22 females, median age was 9 years old. Unfortunately, almost all were experiencing depression, data showed that 1 (2%) didn’t have depression, 15 (30%) had mild depression, 27 (54%) had moderate depression and 7 (14%) had been experiencing severe depression, Mostly, all in our study were experiencing anxiety, data showed that 1 (2%) didn’t experience anxiety, 7 (14%) experienced mild anxiety, 16 (32%) experienced moderate anxiety while 26 (52%) experienced severe anxiety. Fair physical, social and emotional health overall, data showed that the average physical health quality of life was 450 (SD 197.65), the average emotional health quality of life was 275 (SD 126.91), the average social health quality of life was 275 (SD 123.61) and the average school performance quality of life was 287.5 (SD 154.31). There were 9 cases newly diagnosed with epilepsy who were COVID IgM. Among subjects with COVID IgM positive, 3 (25%) had no neurological manifestations. Cases had higher levels of IL-6 compared to control children 187.5+/-68.89 and 77.33+/-27.94 respectively with statistically significant difference p < 0.001. However, no significant difference was found upon comparing COVID IgM levels of the 2 relevant groups. Conclusion COVID-19 pandemic has major impacts on health-related quality of life, causing depression, anxiety, decreased social and physical activities and poor school performance. COVID-19 can cause new onset seizures and epilepsy, or increase the frequency of seizures, IL-6 is a useful marker for severity of diseases as COVID-19, also for following up the progression of the disease, but not a marker for diagnosing it.