The prevalence and subjective handicap of epilepsy in Ilie--a rural riverine community in South West Nigeria: a door-to-door survey.

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of epilepsy is high in tropical countries, particularly in Africa with an estimated mean prevalence of 15 per 1000. There is lack of recent data on epilepsy prevalence in Nigeria. The main objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of epilepsy in Ilie in South West (SW) Nigeria, and the secondary objectives were to determine the clinical characteristics, the seizure types with electroencephalography (EEG) recording, the pattern of treatment, and to evaluate the subjective handicap of people with epilepsy (PWE).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study, which was descriptive cross-sectional, was carried out in Ilie, a rural community in South West Nigeria, using a simple random sampling technique. The survey was done in 2 phases from January 2013 to April 2013. Phase 1: Door-to-door screening using the WHO Neuroscience Research Protocol to detect neurological disorders by health workers. Phase 2: Individuals with positive screening had complete neurologic examination by neurologists as well as an EEG recording. The questionnaires for survey of epilepsy in tropical countries and subjective handicap of epilepsy were administered to all PWE.

RESULTS

Two thousand two hundred twelve individuals from 231 households were screened during the first phase, and 33 cases of neurologic diseases were detected. During the second phase, 10 cases were confirmed to be epilepsy by neurologists, thus giving a crude lifetime prevalence of 10/2212=4.5/1000 population (95% CI=2.30-8.04).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of epilepsy in Ilie in South West Nigeria is rather low compared with previous figures from studies in rural Africa.