FACTORS INFLUENCING THE PRESENCE OF A TREATMENT BY ANTI-EPILEPTIC DRUGS IN 811 EPILEPTIC PATIENTS FROM SIX AFRICAN COUNTRIES

The African Journal of A few studies about treatment by anti-epileptic drugs (AED) in Africa are available. Furthermore, studies could not be compared because of the absence of standardisation of the data collection phase. Threatment issues were assessed in 811 epileptic patients included in six studies performed in Africa using the same standardised Questionnaire for Investigation of Epilepsy in Tropical Countries, set up by the Limoges Institute of Neuroepidemiology and Tropical Neurology and the Pan African Association of Neurological Sciences (3). A part of this Questionnaire is dedicated to the assessment of the treatment in a patient. The studies comprised of two prevalence studies in Benin (1) and Cameroon (unpublished observations), two case-control studies in Central African Republic (2) and Kenya (unpublished observations), and two hospital based studies in Egypt (unpublished data) and Mauritania (4) The statistical tests used were Pearson Chi-square, Fisher exact test, and Mann-Whitney test.