Epidemiology of Epilepsy in Urban Areas of the People's Republic of China

Abstract

To determine the prevalence of major neurologic disorders, a door-to-door survey was conducted in six cities of the People's Republic of China during 1983 in a well-defined population of 63,195. The survey included a complete census and a screening interview together with an examination having high sensitivity for detecting individuals with frequently occurring neurologic disorders, including epilepsy. All individuals with responses or findings suggesting neurologic disease were examined by senior neurologists using standardized diagnostic criteria. There was 100% cooperation among the study subjects. Two hundred eighty-nine individuals alive on prevalence day (January 1, 1983) were identified as having epilepsy, yielding a lifetime age-adjusted (to the 1960 U.S. population) point prevalence ratio of 4.4/1,000. There were 16 people who developed epilepsy in the sample population during 1982, providing an age-adjusted incidence rate of 35/100,000 per year. The most frequent type identified was generalized convulsive seizures. Brain injury, intracranial infection, and cerebrovascular disease, in that order, were the leading putative causes of epilepsy.

Comparative Epidemiology of Epilepsy in Pakistan and Turkey: Population‐Based Studies Using Identical Protocols

“…The frequency of CPS in the present study (6% in Pakistan and 12.3% in Turkey) was low, but similar figures have been reported in several surveys: 6% in Copiah County, Mississippi (14); 6% in a Parsi community in Bombay (24); and 2.8% in China (16). A higher frequency of 14.6% in a population aged >15 years in Libya (15) may have resulted from a selection bias.…”

“…A notable exception is a study conducted in China (16). One previous population-based epilepsy survey in Pakistan indicates that only 43% of persons with suspected epilepsy underwent EEG in a "big" city hospital (26).…”

Knowledge and attitudes toward epilepsy among primary, secondary and tertiary level teachers

“…Empirically, the most frequent causes of symptomatic epilepsy are neurocysticercosis, birth brain injury, intracranial infections and cerebrovascular disease. The last three causes are the most prevalent in other report 1 . In Brazil, neurocysticercosis reflects an important sanitary problem related to the insufficiency of basic health educative programs.…”

“…Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases with a prevalence rate varying from 2.8 to 19.5 per 1,000 general population [1][2][3][4][5][6] and it prevails more specially among school children. There are no epidemiological studies in our region related to the prevalence of epilepsy in school children.…”

Prevalência da epilepsia entre os índios Bakairi do estado do Mato Grosso, Brasil

“…A prevalência de epilepsia de 18,6‰ encontrada neste estudo aproxima-se mais das encontradas nos países em desenvolvimento 10,[21][22][23][24][25][26] que nos industrializados 16,[27][28][29][30] .…”