Frequency of seizure attack and associated factors among patients with epilepsy at University of Gondar Referral Hospital: a cross-sectional study, Gondar, North West Ethiopia, 2017

OBJECTIVE: About three-fourth of adults with new-onset epilepsy become seizure-free with current anti-epileptic drugs, but around one-fourth of the patients continue to experience seizure which increases the risk of accident, disability, death and treatment side effects. Therefore, this study aimed to address the gap in determining the magnitude of the number of seizure attacks and identify the factors that provoke a repeated seizure in a patient with epilepsy. RESULTS: A total of 166(40.68%) study participants were experienced seizure attacks with a minimum of one and a maximum of seventeen times attacks. Perceived exposure to noise (adjusted incidence risk ratio (AIRR) = 1.91, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.46, 2.49]), light (AIRR = 1.48, 95% CI [1.09, 2.00]), head injury (AIRR = 1.71, 95% CI [1.14, 2.57]) and sleep deprivations (AIRR = 1.41, 95% CI [1.02, 1.94]) were associated with increased incidence of seizure, while adherence adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 18.18, 95% CI [3.49, 94.63]), being in middle wealth index (AOR = 3.52, 95% CI [1.14, 11.02]) and being in rich wealth index (AOR = 4.05, 95% CI [1.54, 10.69]) were associated with inflation of zero count.