Psychiatric aspects of epilepsy in childhood treated with carbamazepine, phenytoin or sodium valproate: a random trial.

Sixty-four new cases of childhood epilepsy were randomly assigned to either carbamazepine, phenytoin or sodium valproate, and were assessed with behavioural measures before medication and after one and six months of treatment. Those treated with carbamazepine and sodium valproate had minor behavioural difficulties after a month of treatment, but these did not persist. Mothers of the epileptic children had unusually high levels of anxiety and depression two months, on average, after epilepsy was diagnosed.