Prevalence of mood, anxiety disorders, and suicidality in patients with newly diagnosed focal epilepsy

There is a need to investigate the association between the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders, and suicidal ideation/attempts, at the time of new epilepsy diagnoses because compared to the population in general these are more common in individuals with epilepsy.
Findings suggest that prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders in newly diagnosed patients closely resembles findings observed in patients with well-established epilepsy (43.5% of subjects had a psychiatric diagnosis, 38.6% met the criteria for mood and anxiety disorders, 21.6% met the criteria for suicidal ideation/attempts).
Mood and anxiety disorder rates were comparable to those with established epilepsy, whereas data revealed an increase when compared to the general population.