Treatment gap in Epilepsy: new insight from analysis of diagnosis gap

Abstract

Epilepsy has a lifetime cumulative prevalence of approximately 1%, which means that there are about 70 million people in the world - of which 1,9 million are Brazilians - facing this illness. It's known that 70% of these individuals can have their seizures controlled with one medication, which could be provided through a primary care system. Nevertheless, the treatment gap is high even in countries with available medication, as for instance in Brazil. Thus one hypothesis for the treatment gap is the lack of diagnosis of epilepsy within the health care system. The objectives of this study are to ascertain the Diagnosis Gap of epilepsy in Primary Care setting in Brazil and to correlate Human Development Index and Diagnosis gap. To reach these objectives we'll calculate the Diagnosis Gap in every state and region of the country taking in consideration the distinct kinds of SUS coverage in the country. We'll use demographic data from Census 2010, data about SUS coverage in 2010, and the total number of patients registered with epilepsy in the Basic Attention Information System (SIAB). The "Diagnosis Gap" will be calculated as de difference between "Estimated Prevalence" of epilepsy on the population under a specific kind of SUS coverage and the total number of people with epilepsy officially registered in the Primary Attention, divided by "Estimated Prevalence" of epilepsy on the population of the specific coverage analyzed. Then, the Diagnosis Gap of each state and region will be compared with their respective IDHM, which is an official data that provide information about the population's socioeconomic development and access to health.