Interdisciplinary Centre for Palliative Care and Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Mov Disord. 2010 Apr 15;25(5):596-601. doi: 10.1002/mds.22806.
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a highly prevalent movement disorder. However, prevalences seem to vary amongst different ethnicities. To date, no community-based prevalence studies on RLS have been reported from the African continent. We have conducted a community-based, door-to-door study in northern Tanzania. Over a period of 16 months, 7,654 people aged 14 years and older were screened for the RLS Essential Diagnostic Criteria. Sampling was performed according to the method of "multistage cluster sampling." People who screened positive where reinterviewed and physically examined by a specialist neurologist. During the screening phase, 10 people answered "yes" to at least one of the screening questions. After reinterviewing those people, the result was confirmed in five people only. After careful re-evaluation of the results, only one person was diagnosed with RLS. Because of methodological limitations a definite prevalence may only be calculated from larger population-based studies of different African ethnicities with screening questions adapted to the cultural context.
不宁腿综合征（RLS）是一种常见的运动障碍。然而，不同种族的患病率似乎有所不同。迄今为止，还没有来自非洲大陆的基于社区的 RLS 患病率研究报告。我们在坦桑尼亚北部进行了一项基于社区的、挨家挨户的研究。在 16 个月的时间里，对 7654 名年龄在 14 岁及以上的人进行了 RLS 基本诊断标准的筛查。抽样采用“多阶段聚类抽样”方法进行。对筛查阳性的人进行重新访谈，并由神经科专家进行体格检查。在筛查阶段，有 10 人对至少一个筛查问题回答“是”。对这些人重新访谈后，只有 5 人结果得到确认。经过仔细重新评估结果，只有 1 人被诊断为 RLS。由于方法学上的限制，只有通过对不同非洲族裔进行基于人群的、有针对性的筛查问题的更大规模研究，才能计算出确切的患病率，这些研究应适应文化背景。
