Effect of war on the occurrence of epileptic seizures in children

We studied the occurrence of epileptic seizures in 72 children from war-affected and 39 children from non-war-affected areas during and after the 1991-1992 war in Croatia. During the war, children from war-affected areas who had "stable" epilepsy before the war and regularly took antiepilepsy medications had epileptic seizures more often than children from areas not affected by the war. In 2002, all children (n=10) whose first epileptic seizure was related to a stressful event had a "stable" condition, whereas 4 of 10 children whose first epileptic seizure was not stress-related had an "unstable" condition. Typical absence seizures were observed in 6 of 10 children in the stress-related group and none in the non-stress-related patient group. Stressful life events can be provocative factors for the occurrence of epileptic seizures. Typical absence seizures are more likely to be provoked by stress then other types of epileptic seizures.