THE YELANDUR STUDY - A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH TO EPILEPSY IN RURAL SOUTH-INDIA EPIDEMIOLOGIC ASPECTS

Data on the epidemiology of epilepsy in a rural community in a develop ing country would be of value in planning a decentralized management o f this malady in its early stages commensurate with available local re sources. A detailed screening instrument covering various seizure type s was used by trained paramedical workers in a door-to-door survey of a population of 64 963 in citral South India. The prevalence period wa s from 1 April 1990 to 31 March 1991. The crude prevalence rate per 10 00 for active epilepsy was 4.38 for males, 3.40 for females and 3.91 f or both. The minimum and maximum prevalence rates, the latter computed from a validation sample, were 3.91 and 4.63 for active epilepsy; 0.2 8 and 0.77 for inactive epilepsy and 4.19 and 5.41 for life-time preva lence. In addition, corresponding figures for hot-water epilepsy, a ty pe of reflex epilepsy peculiar to this area, were 2.49 and 2.99 for ac tive phase; 0.35 and 0.85 for inactive phase and 2.85 and 3.83 for lif e-time prevalence. The incidence rate for epilepsy was 49.3 per 100 00 0, the same as in developed countries. These data do not support the c oncept that the prevalence of epilepsy in developing countries is twic e that in the developed world. However, the role of local/regional var iations should be borne in mind before extrapolating the figures to an entire country.