1Assistant Professor, Government College of Nursing, Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram
2Professor and Head of the Department, Department of Pediatric Neurology, SAT Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Online published on 27 January, 2017.
Childhood epilepsy is among the most prevalent and therefore important neurological conditions in the developing years. The mainstay of epilepsy treatment involves antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), to which most children with epilepsy respond well. Cognitive, psychological and behavioral abnormalities in children with epilepsy often are attributed to antiepileptic medication. Most of these effects are unsupported by data from well controlled clinical research. Only few studies on this topic have been conducted in developing countries.
To identify the neurobehavioral problems among children receiving anti epileptic therapy.
A cross sectional design was used to identify the neurobehavioral problems among children above 4 yrs receiving anti epileptic drugs. 330 mothers of children who received AED were interviewed to find out developmental and behavioral problems using Developmental psychopathology Checklist. Bharatraj Developmental Screening test was used as a screening tool to exclude severe intellectual disability.
Majority of children (72.4%) were in the age group of 6–12 years. (8.8 + 3.0). Average age at onset of seizure disorder was 4 yrs. 41.5% of the subjects were on anti-epileptic drugs for more than 3 yrs. Among the neurobehavioral problems, 48.4% of children receiving anti-epileptic drugs had learning disability and another 40.6% children had emotional problems. Conduct disorders were found among 10.6% of children. Somatic disorders were seen among 4.2% of children.
Neurobehavioral problems, Anti epileptic drug therapy
