Prevalence of epilepsy in Bursa city center, an urban area of Turkey.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of epilepsy in the central district of Bursa, located in the western part of Turkey. The method used in this study was determined according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) on prevalence research in developing countries. METHODS: In total, 2116 individuals were interviewed between September 1, 2004, and February 1, 2005. The sample group was selected from people living in the central district of Bursa, according to the stratified sampling method with regard to socioeconomic class, age, and sex. Neurology residents using standard questionnaires and semistructured interviews carried out face-to-face interviews. RESULTS: Of the 199 presumptive cases detected in the initial interview, 26 (11 female, 15 male subjects) received the diagnosis of epilepsy on the day of assessment. Prevalence of active epilepsy was 8.5 per 1000, and lifetime prevalence was 12.2 per 1000 in the central district of Bursa. Classification of the epileptic seizures revealed that 30.7% of the patients had partial and 65.3% had generalized seizures; seizures could not be classified in 3.8%. The seizures had begun during the first decade of life in 50% of the cases, and 34.6% have been using regular medications. CONCLUSIONS: Prevalence studies in our country are scarce; thus further research including different regions and multiple centers is needed. Addition of questions suitable to the Turkish social structure to the standard questions determined by WHO may be beneficial for practitioners in considering the diagnosis of epilepsy and referring these patients to specialized centers.

Headache prevalence in adolescents aged 12 to 17: a student-based epidemiological study in Bursa.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of headaches among Turkish adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old in Bursa province of Turkey. METHODS: A multistep, stratified, cluster sampling method was used for subject selection. The estimated sample size for 12- to 14-year-old students was 1,270 and for 15- to 17-year-old students was 1,117. Our study sample included 6.5% of the secondary schools and 1.8% of the students aged 12 to 17 years old. The study was conducted in two phases; the questionnaire phase and the face-to-face interview phase. RESULTS: The prevalence of recurrent headache in the study population was 52.2%. Girls (59.8%) had significantly more recurrent headache than boys (45.1%) The prevalence of recurrent headache increased from 42.2% up to 60.7% by age. In multivariate logistic regression analysis age and gender differed significantly between adolescents with and without recurrent headache groups. Frequent episodic tension-type headache was the most common (25.9%) headache among Turkish adolescents, followed by migraine (14.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Age and gender appeared to be demographic factors increasing adolescent headache prevalence. Frequent episodic-tension type headache was the most common headache followed by migraine. Our migraine prevalence was slightly higher than most of the previously reported prevalence rates. This might be due to the new classification criteria of headache released by International Headache Society.