A prospective incidence study of epilepsy in a rural community of West-Bengal, India 1Shankar

Epilepsy is a major health problem in India, but community based incidence study is rare. This study was undertaken to determine the incidence rate in a rural community of the state of West Bengal, India. The study was done through house to house survey by a dedicated team of neurologists, who carried out the survey cum case detection over 5 years. A total of 38 cases were detected during the survey period in a population of 20,966. The age adjusted (to World Standard Population) average annual incidence rate was 42.08 per 100,000 persons per year (95% confidence interval, 29.75-57.86). This rate was higher than many developed countries, but lower than the developing countries. Cerebral infection was the most common putative factor observed. An increasing trend of incidence of epilepsy has been observed over the years during the period of the study. Neurology Asia 2008; 13 : 41 – 48 Address correspondence to: Dr Shyamal Kumar Das, Professor Dept of Neuromedicine, Bangur Institute of Neurosciences and psychiatry, Kolkata, India 700026. e-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION Epilepsy is a major health problem in developing countries including India. India has the second largest population in the world with almost one billion plus inhabitants, and 70% of the people live in rural communities. Though there are many prevalence studies, only one incidence study has been performed in the rural population of India.17 The single incidence study from the Southern India has documented a rate of 49.3 per 100,0007, and the global incidence varies from 11 to 190 ( Table 1). India, being a multiethnic and multi linguistic country needs more community based incidence study to observe the trend of epilepsy in different communities. Epidemiological studies are usually carried by trained non-professional workers in the developing countries due to dearth of trained professionals. This is a study to determine the incidence rate and pattern of epileptic disorders in a rural population of Eastern India, utilizing the neurology service from a tertiary care neurological institute in Kolkata, the capital of the state of West-Bengal in the survey cum case detection program. METHODS