Decreased treatment gap in epilepsy after intervention in five rural areas of China / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the change of treatment gap of epilepsy after intervention in rural areas of China.Method Six months after being stopped from the intervention project in 2004,using the same method as the first survey at the baseline,a door-to-door epidemiological survey was conducted again in 5 rural areas where the intervention measures had been carried out for about 3 years.Results Three hundred and twenty cases of epilepsy were diagnosed in the total sample population,yielding a prevalence rate of 0.62% and the prevalence of active epilepsy 0.44%.The prevalence and the active prevalence of epilepsy in the survey in 2000 were 0.70% and 0.46% respectively.Of the people with epilepsy,39.1% were treated regularly which increased about 14% than that in the baseline survey (24.8%).The treatment gap for active epilepsy was 49.8%,which decreased by 12.8% than that in the first survey (62.6%). Conclusion The treatment gap of epilepsy in the demonstration areas has decreased remarkably,proving that the intervention measures used in the study are effective and feasible in rural areas of China.