Joint modeling factors affecting interictal epileptiform discharge and seizure occurrence among epileptic patients

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that may last a lifetime and will require regular medical care. To examine the factors affecting the occurrence of seizures and i nterictal epileptiform discharge (IED) in epileptic patients with considering the correlation between them and also because of the lack of similar studies in this field made the necessity of performing this research. Data were recorded from 97 epileptic patients referred to Shafa Neuroscience Center between 2007 and 2010. Data analysis was performed using shared random effect model. Software used for data analysis was SAS 9.2, and significance level was regarded as 0.05. Among the factors of gender, seizure type, war wounded and duration of epilepsy, only two factors had jointly statistically significant effect; Duration of epilepsy on IED (p<.020) and war wounded on seizure occurrence (p<.002). Odds of Seizures occurred for wars wounded are approximately 11 times more than the odds of other patient. One year increasing on duration of epilepsy resulted in 2.5% increase in IED mean. Since there was a correlation between IED and seizure occurrence, analyzing these data with joint model is proposed. War wounded and duration of epilepsy affected on seizure occurrence and IED, respectively. These covariates should be considered for epilepsy treatment