Prevalence of Epilepsy among Iranian Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Epilepsy is known as a periodic and severe disturbance in the nervous system, resulting from abnormal discharge of brain cells. Epilepsy is characterized by unexplained seizures, and threatens human life throughout their entire life span. The prevalence of epilepsy is high in early childhood, and declines with the increase in age. Method: In this study, a meta-analysis was done on the papers published from 2000 to 2023, investigating the prevalence of epilepsy within the age range of 1-20 years. Having a precise report of the studied city, report of prevalence as number or percentage, and report of epilepsy within the mentioned age range were the inclusion criteria for the papers. Any disagreement in fulfilling the criteria was resolved in a meeting by the presence of the three researchers. The search was done across Iranian databases plus ISI, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase with keywords of epilepsy, prevalence, children, adolescents, Iran, epidemiology, and psychiatric disorders. Result: In the initial search, 1276 papers were found, 28 of which were selected after screening based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, and were analyzed via random method. The prevalence of epilepsy was found to be 2.3 (95%CI: 1.3-3.8). Its Z-value was-13.719, Q-value 2443.036, df (Q) 31, and I-squared 98.731. Conclusion: The prevalence of epilepsy in Iran is 2.3 (95% CI: 1.3-3.8), which warrants the necessary measures to be taken for its reduction.