A house-to-house survey of epileptic seizures in an urban community of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
OBJECTIVE
To carry out a prevalence study about epileptic seizures and epilepsy in an urban low-income population.


METHODS
Prevalence study in a two-phase model: screening and diagnosis confirmation. It was applied a structured questionnaire in 982 people all effectively resident on March 1st 2000 based on a population census previously carried out by the Nurse Faculty. One neurologist interviewed all the suspected cases.


RESULTS
It was detected 176 suspected cases of epileptic seizures: 156 with non-epileptic events, and 20 with epileptic seizures. The lifetime point prevalence was of 16.3 cases per 1000 inhabitants, and of active epilepsy, 5.1 / 1000. If we consider false negative diagnosis from the screening procedures, the lifetime point-prevalence rates until 20.8/1000.


CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence data of epilepsy shows less impressive than in other Latin-American studies and even some Brazilian, but similar to other Brazilian studies. This suggests geographical diversity and/or methodological differences among studies. Anyway, probably the epilepsy prevalence in Rio de Janeiro is not so high as that found in the Latin countries rural areas.
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D011203:Poverty; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data