Epilepsy in Punjab (India): A Population-Based Epidemiologic Study

To assess the prevalence of epilepsy in a rural area adjoining a city.

A door-to-door, cross-sectional epidemiological survey was carried out covering an entire rural population of 103,693 people.

Crude period and point prevalence rates for active epilepsy were 7.67 and 7.44 per 1,000 respectively. Crude incidence rate was 60.76 per 100,000 during the year 2007. Mean, SD, median and variance were 17.2, 16, 13 and 257.6 years respectively for age at onset of active epilepsy patients. The overall prevalence patterns among males and females were not significantly different. Active epilepsy cases (n = 795) included electro-clinical syndromes and constellations (n = 117, 14.7%), symptomatic epilepsy (n = 153, 19.2%), epilepsy due to unknown cause (n = 513, 64.5%) and dual diagnosis (n = 12, 1.5%).

The present study showed that the prevalence rate, in the rural area adjoining a city, was comparable to that of the urban area and significantly less than that of the remote rural area as described by another study. Age- and sex-specific prevalence and incidence rates were similar to the rates reported by other studies. The reason for a lower number of symptomatic cases to be reported, per this study, may be due to lack of neuroimaging.