The degree to which depressive disorders, as the most frequent psychiatric comorbidity in epilepsy, influence the quality of life (QOL) of the patients is a research issue of interest in recent years.

Purpose of the study is to assess simultaneously the influence of some sociodemographic, seizure-related variables and comorbid depression in determining QOL of people with epilepsy (PWE).

The study included 126 patients aged 18–60 with a determined diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. Comorbid depressive disorder was diagnosed according to ICD-10 diagnostic criteria followed by an evaluation on Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17). QOL was assessed by the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory - 31(QOLIE-31). Seizure severity was measured by Seizure Severity Questionnaire (SSQ). Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to explore the association between possible prognostic variables (independent variables) and QOLIE-31 overall and subscale scores (dependent variables).

Following the univariate analysis gender, age, education and employment as sociodemographic factors and seizure severity, seizure frequency, duration of epilepsy and antiepileptic medication intake as seizure-related factors and comorbid depressive disorder were the variables strongly associated with QOLIE-31 scores. Multiple regressions examined the contribution of these independent variables to QOLIE-31 overall score and subscales’ scores. A three variable model accounted for 68.9% of the variance for QOLIE-31 overall score including seizure severity, comorbid depression and seizure frequency.

Clinical factors are the strongest predictors of QOL of PWE in our study. Seizure severity and comorbid depression are found to be the main variables affecting QOLIE-31 scores.