Prevalence of Seizure Disorder in School Children in Kashmir

ABSTRACT

Seizure disorder is highly prevalent disorder particularly in developing countries. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of seizure disorder of school going children (6-16) years of age in all the six districts of Kashmir. Methods: The selection of schools was done by PPS (proportionate to population size) used in cluster survey. Questioner Performa was given to 60 randomly selected children from each selected school, 30 boys and 30 girls were screened to find out the prevalence of seizure disorder. To give adequate representation to all individuals of various strata both Govt and Private run schools from rural as well as urban areas were selected. Results: A total of 19 positive cases of epilepsy were detected during the survey period, After screening of 5760 children (rural and urban) the crude prevalence of epilepsy was found to be 3.3/ 1000 which is comparable to the other studies in the world. The Male prevalence in school going children was 3.8/1000 while female prevalence of epilepsy was 2.77/1000. Commonest type of seizure was generalized tonic clonic (GTC) 78.9%. Conclusion: The prevalence of seizure disorder in children of lower socio economic class was 3.5/1000.