Epilepsy in adulthood: Prevalence, incidence, and associated antiepileptic drug use in autistic adults in a state Medicaid system

Abstract

Epilepsy is more common in autistic children compared to children without autism, but we do not have good estimates of how many autistic adults have epilepsy. We used data from a full population of 7513 autistic adults who received Medicaid in Wisconsin to figure out the proportion of autistic adults who have epilepsy, as compared to 18,429 adults with intellectual disability. We also wanted to assess how often epilepsy is first diagnosed in adulthood. Finally, we wanted to see whether antiepileptic drugs are being used to treat epilepsy in autistic adults. We found that 34.6% of autistic adults with intellectual disability and 11.1% of autistic adults without intellectual disability had epilepsy, compared to 27.0% of adults with intellectual disability alone. Autistic women and autistic adults with intellectual disability were more likely than autistic men and autistic adults without intellectual disability to have both previous and new diagnoses of epilepsy. Finally, we found that antiepileptic medications are commonly prescribed to autistic people who do not have epilepsy potentially to treat mental health conditions or behavior problems, and that antiepileptic medications are not always prescribed to autistic people with epilepsy even though they are indicated as a first-line epilepsy treatment. The findings of this study highlight the need to effectively treat and prevent epilepsy in autistic adults.

Keywords: Medicaid; autism spectrum disorders; epilepsy; gender; intellectual disability; medical comorbidity; sex differences; stroke.