Epilepsy Journal

Objective: To determine the role of family history of epilepsy and consanguinity in Yemeni epileptic patients.

Materials and Methods: Prospective descriptive study including all epileptic patients attended Sana'a and Thamar universities hospitals in Yemen during the period from January 2014 to December 2015. Every case was subjected to full clinical examination, history of epilepsy, history of epilepsy in the family and consanguinity among parents. Information regarding family history of epilepsy and consanguinity was checked by two members of investigation team for assuring correct information. Special sheet was designed to collect demographic data, results of investigation and other possible risk factors. The data was entered into PC, and statistically analyzed using SPSS package (Univariate Analysis of Variance and N-Anove- test) was used to obtain P value and multiple regression model to obtain R square.

Results: The total numbers of epilepsy cases in this study were 300, of this (56.3%) were males and (43.7%) females. Most epilepsy cases (61.7%) were below 16 years of age. Positive family history was documented in 120 patients (40.0%) and positive parental consanguinity was 147 patients (49.0%). The onset of first crisis of epilepsy among <1-5 years age group patients who had positive family history of epilepsy and parental consanguinity, was high in comparison with those had no family history and no parental consanguinity, with significant P value 0.001 and 0.0001 respectively. Results of Univariate Analysis of Variance using N-Anove- test found significant differences between age and occurrence of epilepsy with P value reached to 0.000. Using multiple regression model, we found that there was independent correlation between epilepsy and each of family history, consanguinity of parents and birth asphyxia with (P value of 0.034, 0.017 and 0.008) respectively.

Conclusion: In our study we found that, the positive family history of epilepsy and consanguinity in epileptic patients increased the incidence of epilepsy mainly at early childhood.