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Urban prevalence of epilepsy: populational study in São José do Rio Preto, a medium-sized city in Brazil

2004; Thieme Medical Publishers (Germany); Volume: 62; Issue: 2a Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0004-282x2004000200002

1678-4227

Moacir Alves Borges, Li M. Li, Carlos A.M. Guerreiro, Elza Márcia Targas Yacubian, José Antônio Cordeiro, Waldir Antônio Tognola, Ana Paula Pina Borges, Dirce Maria Trevisan Zanetta,

Neonatal and fetal brain pathology

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of epilepsy in the urban population of São José do Rio Preto. This is a medium-sized city of 336000 inhabitants, located in the northwest of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. METHOD: A crosssectional epidemiological investigation with a randomized sample was performed in two phases, a screening phase and a confirmation of the diagnosis phase. The gold standard was a clinical investigation and neurological examination. The chi-square test was used in analysis of the results and p-value value < 0.05 was considered significant. Prevalence was calculated with 95% confidence interval. RESULTS: The study sample size was 17293 individuals, with distributions of gender, age, and race similar to the general population. The prevalence per 1000 inhabitants of epilepsy was 18.6, of these 8.2 were active, defined as at least one seizure within the last two years. The prevalence per 1000 inhabitants for the age groups (years) was 4.9 (04), 11.7 (514), 20.3 (1564) and 32.8 (65 or over). CONCLUSION: Prevalence of both accumulated and active epilepsy was elevated, comparable to other developing nations, in particular those of Latin America. However, the prevalence of epilepsy in childhood was low, whilst in aged individuals it was high similar to industrialized nations.