ABSTRACT
To determine risk factors of a febrile seizure among United Arab Emirates children. Match case-control study. Al-Ain Medical Health District, Tawam and Al Ain Teaching Hospital of Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Seventy patients with febrile seizure were identified and were matched to 70 control febrile patients without seizure with the same age range 6 to 36 months, who attended the same hospital during the same period of time. Mothers of cases and controls were interviewed by telephone. If the mother was not available, the father was interviewed. Factors were investigated. Analysis was based on matched case-control and logistic regression analysis. The mean and standard deviation for age were 18.0 +/- 11.0 months for cases and 15.1 +/- 6.7 months for controls. Factors for the United Arab Emirates children found to be male gender, having respiratory infection, positive family history of febrile seizure, prematurely, and having abnormal developmental milestones. Sixty five presents were found to have febrile seizure for the first time. Febrile seizure was found to have a peak incidence of first febrile seizure at time of the first birthday. It had seasonal variation, peaking in winter and summer. The characteristics of the febrile seizure in United Arab Emirates children were found to be having seizure with 10 minutes duration and above, but not longer than 30 minutes; simple seizure, having only one attack at time of admission and having a high temperature with respiratory infection. In the United Arab Emirates the risk factors for febrile seizure has been shown to be genetic factors, age, gender, and seasonality. It is recommended to establish health educational programs for mothers about febrile convulsion and how to deal with the children during the attack