Marital Status of Patients with Epilepsy with Special Reference to the Influence of Epileptic Seizures on the Patient's Married Life

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PURPOSE: We investigated the marital status of the patients with epilepsy to clarify the clinical factors impeding improvement of the quality of life in adults with epilepsy. METHODS: We examined the marital status of adult patients with epilepsy who did not have mental retardation and had been treated at Hirosaki University Hospital, Hirosaki, Japan, for >5 years. The present study included 278 patients (142 men and 136 women) ranging from age 20 to 60 years. RESULTS: Sixty-six men and 52 women were single. Seventy-six males and 84 females had been married. The present study investigated the proportion of patients in whom seizures were controlled at the time of marriage. Percentages were only 30% for men and 22% for women. This result showed that in many patients, seizures were not controlled when they were married, which suggests that seizures themselves may not markedly inhibit marriage. Thirteen men and 16 women (total, 29 patients) had experienced divorce. Epilepsy was the cause of divorce in seven of the 29 patients who had been divorced. Of these seven patients, only one patient had informed the spouse of the disease before marriage. In the remaining six patients, seizures were witnessed after marriage or the disease was revealed by medication, which resulted in divorces. CONCLUSIONS: Concerning the association between marriage and the job, a close relation was found between the presence or absence of marriage and the presence or absence of a job among male patients.

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