Disability pensions for epilepsy with or without mental retardation: a 15-year Swedish survey

The disability pensions of the Swedish National Social Insurance Board to persons with epilepsy from January 1, 1971 to December 31, 1985 were studied. On the latter date 6,658 individuals in the register were receiving disability pensions. This corresponds to an age-specific prevalence (16-64 years) of 1.2 per 1,000. Female and male patients were about equally represented. Four diagnostic categories were specified: I: 34% with epilepsy as the main diagnosis; II: 43% with epilepsy as a complementary diagnosis; III: 4% with epilepsy as a main and mental retardation (MR) as a complementary diagnosis; and IV: 19% with MR as a main and epilepsy as a complementary diagnosis. Overall 43% had both epilepsy and MR. The crude prevalence per county ranged from 0.25 to 1.23 per 1,000. Age on entry was 1.8-63.8 (mean, 36.7) years, and pension duration was 0.1-15 (mean, 7.4) years. Mean age on prevalence day was 43.9 years. During the 15-year period annual pension costs were 20-380 million Swedish kronor (SEK) ($3-60 million), and the total costs were 2,370 million SEK ($365 million). Adjusted to 1989, the costs would be 84-463 million SEK ($13-71 million) and 4,258 million SEK ($655 million), respectively.