INCLEN Diagnostic Tool for Epilepsy (INDT-EPI) for primary care physicians: development and validation

To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of a new diagnostic instrument for epilepsy - INCLEN Diagnostic Tool for Epilepsy (INDT-EPI) - with evaluation by expert pediatric neurologists.

Evaluation of diagnostic test.

Tertiary care pediatric referral centers in India.

Children aged 2-9 years, enrolled by systematic random sampling at pediatric neurology out-patient clinics of three tertiary care centers were independently evaluated in a blinded manner by primary care physicians trained to administer the test, and by teams of two pediatric neurologists.

A 13-item questionnaire administered by trained primary care physicians (candidate test) and comprehensive subject evaluation by pediatric neurologists (gold standard).

There were 240 children with epilepsy and 274 without epilepsy. The candidate test for epilepsy had sensitivity and specificity of 85.8% and 95.3%; positive and negative predictive values of 94.0% and 88.5%; and positive and negative likelihood ratios of 18.25 and 0.15, respectively.

The INDT-EPI has high validity to identify children with epilepsy when used by primary care physicians.