Prevalence of epilepsy in a migrant population near Quito, Ecuador

A census, uniform screening questionnaire and simple screening neurologic examination were administered door to door to the 221 residents of Paluguillo, a rural migrant community near Quito, Ecuador. This protocol was pretested to assure a high level of sensitivity for detecting major neurologic diseases in both children and adults. Of the participants, 119 (54%) had responses or findings suggesting the presence of neurologic disease, and, in particular, 53 (24%) had responses suggestive of epilepsy. These individuals were then examined by neurologists using fixed diagnostic criteria. The prevalence ratio for epilepsy was found to be 22.6/1,000. The results of this survey support the conclusion that epilepsy has a higher prevalence in rural areas of socioeconomically deprived countries than it does in industrialized nations.