The ARCH Lab contributed to a paper with colleagues from McMaster University on a paper published in Epilepsia titled “Self-esteem mediates mental health outcomes in young people with epilepsy”.

The authors evaluated the extent to which self-esteem mediates the impacts of epilepsy-specific and environmental factors on mental health outcomes in young people with epilepsy. Data come from 480 young people with epilepsy and their families, over a 28-month period. Several constructs were measured, including: clinical seizure burden, cognitive comorbidity, peer and parental support, self-esteem, and self-reported mental health symptoms.

Results indicate that self-esteem mediates the impact that both clinical seizure burden and peer support have on mental health outcomes. This research is significant, as it demonstrates that supporting self-esteem could mitigate negative influences on mental health, whether from resistant epilepsy or low peer support.