Community-Based Study of Neurological Disorders in Rural Central Ethiopia

Abstract

Between 1986 and 1988 a door-to-door survey was conducted on a stable rural population of 60,820 in central Ethiopia. Trained lay health workers made a complete census and identified cases with symptoms -and signs of neurological disorders, using specially designed questionnaires which, in a previous pilot study, were found to have a sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 85%. Neurological disorders in the rural population were epilepsy, postpoliomyelitis paralysis, mental retardation, peripheral neuropathy (mainly due to leprosy), and deaf-mutism with prevalence rates (cases/100,000 population) of 520, 240, 170,150 and 130, respectively. The prevalence rates of the other less common neurological disorders were 62 for hemiparesis (15 of which were for cerebrovascular accidents), 20 for cerebral palsy, 16 for optic atrophy, 12 for perceptive deafness, 10 for tropical spastic paraparesis, 7 for Parkinson''s disease and 5 for motor neuron disease, ataxia and chorea/athetosis. Among related non-neurological conditions, blindness, locomotor disability and deafness were predominant. The significance and role of such a neuroepidemiological study in laying the strategies for the prevention of neurological disorders and rehabilitation of patients are discussed in the context of a developing country.

Epilepsy and Neurocysticercosis in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Our findings confirm high prevalence rates of epileptic seizures/epilepsy in the hospital and the community, which agrees with the results of previous epidemiological studies of epilepsy in sub-Saharan Africa [5,6,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Most studies conducted in parts of Africa and Latin America indicate higher prevalence rates of epilepsy than have been found in high-income countries, but these prevalence rates can vary within a single country, as shown in Benin, the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tanzania [6,9,19].…”

Childhood Disability in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Overview of Screening, Prevention, Services, Legislation, and Epidemiology

“…Some researchers developed questionnaires for their study but provided inadequate information on psychometric properties of the instruments. 12,25,30,34,36,47 The instruments gathered information on signs and symptoms of various disorders 25 and qualitative information on a child's social integration into society, 47 attitude of families toward their disabled children, 43,58 hearing ability, 30,34 and availability of human resources to provide service for disabled children. 36 Some of the researchers provided limited information on characteristics of the questionnaires and also compared them to more standard tools.…”

“…14,25,48,89,92 The rates generally varied between 0.1% 48 and 0.4% 92 except for 1 study, 89 which reported a rate of 62.2%. All the studies except the study by Chen and Simeonsson 14 used a 2-stage design.…”

“…Study populations of children were identified either through population-based sampling [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] or schools. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Some studies focused on the parents of children with disabilities and tried to assess their needs and attitudes with respect to disability.…”

Perceived stigma and associated factors among people with epilepsy at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: a cross-sectional institution based study

“…And people's belief that epilepsy is contagious and thus hesitate to help or touch the person who has fallen during a seizure. Thus, those suffering from epilepsy are stigmatized and ostracized in the belief that their condition is a demonic possession and believed to be contagious consequently lead epileptic patients to develop different psycho-social problem such as perceived stigma and psychiatric illness which affect epileptic patients more than the seizure itself [1][2][3][4][5] . Stigma is typically a social process, experienced or anticipated and characterized by exclusion, rejection and blame or devaluation about a person or group 6 .…”