Abstract
Background: Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological condition in children and adolescents and affects 3–5 in every 1,000. Although most health care for epilepsy is delivered in outpatient settings, data on hospitalisations for epilepsy can provide an epidemiological background to the burden of epilepsy within a population.
Methods: We used data from the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) to examine rates of hospitalisation for epilepsy and status epilepticus in 0–24-year-olds from 2000 to 2022. We performed a series of time-trend analyses by age group, prioritised ethnicity, and socio-economic deprivation.
Results: Rates of children and young people hospitalised with a diagnosis of epilepsy or status epilepticus have increased overall from 2000 to 2022. Rates of hospitalisation were highest for 0–4-year-olds, for whom there was a particularly large increase in rates after 2020. This trend was not due to an increase in hospitalisation events for individual children; the same patterns were evident for unique individuals. There were disparities for Māori, who were hospitalised at greater rates than were children of other ethnicities, particularly among 15–24-year-olds. Rates of hospitalisation have been consistently highest for children and young people living in the most deprived areas. Recently, however, this deprivation gradient has reduced (although it is still present).
Conclusion: Consistent with other research in Aotearoa, the higher hospitalisation rates for epilepsy and status epilepticus experienced by Māori and those living within high deprivation areas may reflect inadequate access to routine epilepsy care and, hence, suboptimal seizure control. These hospitalisation data will only reflect the tip of the iceberg; this narrow clinical window does not paint the full picture of paediatric epilepsy in Aotearoa. Our findings highlight the importance of a systems-level approach to improve outcomes for all tamariki and taitamariki with epilepsy.