Abstracts

Rationale: Previous reports have suggested that the high prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in epileptic children. The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate whether the prevalence of ADHD in epileptic children is higher even for patients with well controlled epilepsy. Another purpose was to assess the possible relations between different seizure types and ADHD. Methods: Epileptic children and adolescents, aged 6 to18years, who visited for 6 consecutive months were included in the study. Among them we included only those without significant developmental delay as well as being seizure-free for over 3 months. We utilized parent questionnaires based on DSM-IV criteria to diagnose ADHD and Korean version of Child Behavior Checklist and Child Depression Inventory. Results: We enrolled 85 patients (mean age, 10.1 2.8) including 44 boys and 41 girls. Eighteen (5.6%) were diagnosed with ADHD (12 combined, 6 inattentive types; 10 boys, 8 girls). The number of ADHD patients varied between the seizure types: childhood or juvenile absence epilepsy (33.3%, 3 of 9); cryptogenic focal epilepsy (17.6%, 6 of 34); generalized epilepsy (28.6%, 6 of 21); benign rolandic epilepsy (9.5%, 2 of 21). Prevalence of ADHD was significantly high in absence epilepsy (p = 0.043) .Conclusions: Contrary to previous reports, the prevalence of ADHD in patients with well controlled epilepsy and without significant developmental delay is not higher than in the general pediatric population. And the predominant type of ADHD in epileptic children is the combined type, which is the same as in the general pediatric population. Our results also indicate a greater likelihood of ADHD in absence epilepsy even during seizure-free.