ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER IN CHILDREN WITH IDIOPATHIC GENERALIZED EPILEPSY

doi:10.21608/azjp.2021.194420

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER IN CHILDREN WITH IDIOPATHIC GENERALIZED EPILEPSY

Document Type : Original Article

10.21608/azjp.2021.194420

Abstract

Background: About 5.8% of school-aged children worldwide suffer from Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is a complex neurodevelopmental illness. Many researchers reported an increased prevalence of ADHD among the epileptic paediatric population.
Aim of the Work: To evaluate the prevalence rate and characteristics of ADHD in children diagnosed with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE).
Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study was carried out in AlAzhar University Hospital (Assiut branch) during the period from 1 May 2020 to 30 April 2021 on 40 children (aged from 4 to 12 years), full clinical history was obtained this includes (Medical history of epilepsy, age of onset, type, and severity, Past history including: prenatal, natal, and postnatal, Social and family history, Nutritional history and developmental milestone, Antiepileptic medications if present: name of the drugs, doses, duration of treatment, and its response. Lastly screening by DSM IV for detection of ADHD. The children divided into two groups. Group 1 included 20 children with IGE before starting anti-epileptic drugs; group 2 included 20 children with IGE after 6 months of anti-epileptic drugs.
Results: our results indicated that, there was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) between studied groups regarding ADHD in Group I and Group II. The mean ADHD index values were 7.70 ±5.41 and 4.70 ±1.69 among group I, group II, respectively. Also, the results indicated, statistically significant difference between the studied groups regarding to ADHD index (p=0.038), before treatment and after treatment. The incidence of ADHD in our study cases was about 42% (17 from 40 among group I: 12 cases - among group II: 5 cases).
Conclusion: our results concluded that, there is a decrease of incidences of ADHD among Group II than Group I. So these results indicated that, the treatment of IGE is beneficial as it decreased the incidences of ADHD.
Recommendation: Screening of epileptic children for early detection of ADHD. Rapid diagnosis of epilepsy and treatment is required for decreasing the incidences of ADHD.