A study of patients with epilepsy attending T.U. Teaching Hospital

Abstract

There have been only few studies on Epilepsy in Nepal. The present work was
undertaken with the aim of studying socio-demographic and diagnostic profile of
patients presenting with Epilepsy in Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital,
Kathmandu. It was a prospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study, and the sample
comprised all patients of Epilepsy attending the Psychiatric Outpatient Department of
Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for the first time during one year study period
from August 1997 to July 1998. The majority of the patients were less than 40 years of
age (91.98%), more than half of the patients were single and students outnumbered
other professionals. Most of the patients were diagnosed as Generalized idiopathic
epilepsy and epileptic syndromes (85.02%). Only one-fourth of the patients sought
treatment within one month of the onset of epilepsy. There is a need for general public
education programmes to create awareness and destigmatize the disease so that early
recognition and management maybe possible.