Prevalence and Risk Factors for Epilepsy in Children with Cerebral Palsy – A Prospective Observational Study
Main Article Content
Abstract
Objectives: to find the prevalence of epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy and assess the risk factors for epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy
Design: Prospective observational study
Setting: Pediatric OPD of Sri Lakshmi Narayana Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry
Subjects :79 children under 12 years of age with cerebral palsy were enrolled in the study
Methods
Mothers or Caretakers of children with cerebral palsy who attended the pediatric OPD were interviewed to fill a printed structured questionnaire after consent. The details were recorded by the principal investigator. All children with cerebral palsy who had seizures were taken as cases. Children with cerebral palsy who did not have seizures were taken as controls. The data collected were tabulated in a Microsoft Excel data sheet and analysed. The percentage of risk factors was estimated in both the cases and controls. Chi square test was done to calculate p value. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 20.0. P value less than 0.05 was taken as statistically significant
Results
The total number of children with cerebral palsy recruited in our study is 79.Out of these 79 children, 46 (58.2%) had seizures and the remaining 33 (41.8%) children did not have seizures. Hence the prevalence of seizures/epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy as per our study is 58.2%. Among the various risk factors analysed, 5 factors were found to be statistically significant between both the groups namely consanguinity (p value < 0.036) , age of the mother less than 20 years at conception (p value < 0.032), low birth weight (p value < 0.001), NICU stay for more than 48 hours (p value < 0.02) and spastic quadriplegic type of cerebral palsy (p value < 0.04).
Conclusions
The prevalence of epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy in our study is 58.6%.Consanguinity , age of the mother less than 20 years at conception , low birth weight, NICU stay for more than 48 hours and spastic quadriplegic type of cerebral palsy are the risk factors for epilepsy in children with cerebral palsy.