Symptoms of psychopathology in adults with intellectual disability and seizures.
Among adults with ID living in residences, those who also have seizures show more mood symptoms on the DASH-II, but no extra behavior or anxiety problems.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lancioni et al. (2011) compared adults with intellectual disability who have seizures to adults with ID who do not.
Everyone lived in the same residential center. Staff filled out the DASH-II, a checklist that tracks mood, anxiety, and other psychiatric signs in people who cannot talk about feelings.
What they found
Only the mood subscale showed a clear difference. The seizure group scored higher, meaning more signs of depression or irritability.
All other DASH-II areas—anxiety, psychosis, behavior problems—looked the same between the two groups.
How this fits with other research
Arshad et al. (2011) seems to say the opposite. In their clinic, adults with ID plus epilepsy carried fewer psychiatric diagnoses, not more. The key difference is setting: E’s people came from everyday residential homes, while Saadia’s were already sent to a mental-health clinic. Seizures may only add mood risk in the broader, non-clinical ID population.
Matson et al. (1999) also studied the same residential type and found lower social and daily-living skills when seizures are present. Together, the picture is: seizures in ID predict flatter day-to-day skills and slightly darker mood, but not extra behavior disorders.
Myrbakk et al. (2008) remind us that when we do see severe behavior problems, look hard for an underlying psychiatric illness. Seizure status alone does not create those behaviors, so keep searching for other causes.
Why it matters
If you serve adults with ID who have epilepsy, plan to watch mood, not just seizure logs. A higher DASH-II mood score can be your early warning. Simple steps—more exercise, preferred activities, or a psychiatric consult—can stop a slide into full depression. You do not need to expect extra aggression or self-injury; seizures did not raise those risks in this study.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Seizures are more common in individuals with intellectual disabilities than in the general population. As a result, differences in functioning for individuals with intellectual disability with and without seizures have been evaluated. Research on differences in psychopathology for individuals with intellectual disability with and without seizures has been mixed. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in subscale scores on the Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped-II (DASH-II) between individuals with intellectual disability with and without seizures. In this study, 321 individuals from two large developmental centers in the southeastern United States were administered the DASH-II. Researchers found that the seizure group endorsed significantly more symptoms on the mood subscale than the group without seizures. No other group differences were found to be significant. Implications of these results are discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.07.044