Burden of epilepsy in Colombia

Background: Epilepsy lays an important burden on healthcare systems and society in general. Disability adjusted life years (DALYs) have been developed to compare the burden of this disease both between conditions and between geographical boundaries. With improving data on disease incidence and prevalence in Colombia, we can refine our DALYs-based estimates. Methods: Using different strategies, including the official healthcare provision database and death certificates, as well as extrapolation from published neuroepidemiologic studies, we estimated the incidence and prevalence by age groups, disease duration and attributable mortality. With this information we calculated DALYs for the year 2012. Results: Overall, it was found that epilepsy was responsible for 0.88% of all deaths in Colombia. A total of 5.25 DALYs per 1,000 person-years are lost due to epilepsy in Colombia, 75% of which (3.91 DALYs) are due to premature mortality, with a higher burden in men (6.12 DALYs) than in women (4.41 DALYs). Conclusions: We reported new estimations on epilepsy incidence and prevalence by age groups in Colombia and conclude that DALYs lost due to epilepsy in Colombia are almost double the previous figure, mostly because of the underestimation of attributable mortality. With this figure, epilepsy ranks 12th instead of 19th in the list of the most important causes of DALYs lost.