A Study on Prevalence and Association of Anaemia and Hyponatremia in Simple Febrile Seizures in Children

Introduction: Febrile seizures are common type of seizures in children which occurs between 6 months to 60 months of life, usually single episode within 24 hours of onset of fever. It lasts for less than 15 minutes with a brief period of post-ictal drowsiness without any neuroinfection. Aim: To find the prevalence of anaemia and hyponatremia in simple febrile seizures and also the association of anaemia and hyponatremia in children with simple febrile seizures. Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2013 to November 2015 .The sample constituted 120 children belonging to the age group of 6 months to 5 years presenting with simple febrile seizures in the Pediatrics department of Sri Chamarajendra Hospital(SCH), Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences, Hassan. The following data were collected-duration of fever, time of onset of seizures, type of seizures, duration of seizures, medical and family history of seizures in first degree relatives, consanguinity and history on trigger for febrile episode. Anaemia was evaluated by complete blood count analysis with manual peripheral smear examination while hyponatremia was assessed by doing electrolyte analysis using Transasia automated analyser by ion selective electrode method. The data was analysed by using chi-square test. Results: In total 120 children with simple febrile seizures were studied and majority of them belonged to 6months to 2years of age (61.6%).The study showed a significant association between anaemia and febrile seizures (p