Childhood epilepsy and asthma: Changes in behavior problems related to gender and change in condition severity

Purpose: We conducted a 4-year follow-up study of behavior problems in chil dren with either epilepsy (n = 115) or asthma (n = 105) to identify changes in behavior problems as they were related to gender and change in conditio n severity. All children were between ages 8 and 13 years and had been diag nosed with their respective conditions for greater than or equal to 1 year at entry into the study. Methods: Behavior problems were measured by using the mother's rating on th e Child Behavior Checklist. Baseline and follow-up behavior problem scores were examined to see if significant changes occurred over the observation p eriod of the study. To explore change in behavior based on condition severi ty, each child was placed into "low" and "high" condition severity groups a t each time, resulting in four groups: low/low, low/high, high/flow, or hig h/high. There were too few cases in the low/high group to be included in so me analyses. Data were analyzed by using analysis of covariance with adjust ment for baseline behaviors, age, and age of onset. Results: Within both samples, there was a significant improvement over time for the Total Behavior Problems and Internalizing Problems scores (p less than or equal to 0.006). Improvement in Internalizing Problems was greater for the asthma sample than for the epilepsy sample (p less than or equal to 0.007). Within the epilepsy sample, there was a significant gender-by-chan ge in seizure condition interaction for Total Behavior Problems, Internaliz ing Problems, and Externalizing Problems. The interaction effect indicated that behavior problems in girls with high seizure severity at both baseline and follow-up became substantially worse over the 4-year period. Conclusions: It was concluded that adolescent girls, particularly those wit h high-severity epilepsy during the transition to adolescence, merit closer clinical supervision for behavior problems.