The prevalence of epilepsy in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan.
Epilepsy is a devastating neurological disorder in which those afflicted can gain benefit from specific treatments based on their genetics and geographic location. Currently the prevalence of epilepsy is estimated at 0.5-3% of the world-wide population, and is increasing in developing countries. In order to make more accurate assessments of the prevalence of epilepsy, we applied the capture-recapture method in a 12-month study of epilepsy in a population from the Sharur district of Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan with 114,451 people from sixty nine villages and towns. The following methods were applied to determine epilepsy: Door To Door (DTD) survey, Non-Medical Source (NMS), and Medical Source. Using these three techniques, 1,032 patients with epilepsy (9.02/1000) were included in our study. The DTD survey determined 627 patients with epilepsy (5.48/1000) and 247 (2.16/1000) from the NMS methods versus 158 (1.38/1000) from the Medical Source (MS) methods. Applying the capture-recapture method, NMS, and DTD methods, the number of epilepsy cases increased to 1,330 (11.62/1000) [95% CI: 10.21-13.03]. The combinations of these methods show that 887 people (7.75/1000) have a diagnosis of epilepsy. Multiple epidemiological tasks used in our study can be used to estimate clinical signs and/or markers in future applications for the determination and development of treatment strategies for this devastating disease in the third world countries such as the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan.
Department of Neurology I and Medical Genetics, Azerbaijan Medical University, Baku, Azerbaijan.
Sharif I
SI
Magalov
Nusrat F
NF
Hasanov
Nargiz X
NX
Azizova
Aydun N
AN
Novruzov
Zakir B
ZB
Mustafayev
Sadraddin A
SA
Kazimov
Saleh Sh
SSh
Sultanov
Emin N
EN
Hasanov
Gjumrakch
G
Aliev
D001382:Azerbaijan / Q000453:epidemiology; D003625:Data Collection; D003906:Developing Countries; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence