A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence of Epilepsy, Dementia, Headache, and Parkinson Disease in India

Background: There are wide variations reported in the prevalence rates of common neurological disorders in India leading to huge treatment gap. There is no comprehensive systematic review reporting prevalence of common neurological conditions affecting Indians which is essential for developing and aligning health services to meet patient care. Objectives: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence of epilepsy, dementia, headache, and Parkinson's disease (PD) in India from 1980 to 2019. Methods and Materials: We performed a bibliographic systematic search in PubMed and Google Scholar along with manual search for peer-reviewed cross-sectional studies and community-based surveys reporting prevalence of epilepsy, dementia, headache, and PD in India from January 1980 to July 2019. Meta-analysis was performed adopting a random-effects model using "Metafor" package in R. Results: The systematic review and meta-analysis included 50 studies [epilepsy (n = 22), dementia (n = 19), headache (n = 6), and PD (n = 3)] including a total of 179,1541 participants of which 5,890 were diagnosed with epilepsy, 1,843 with dementia, 914 with headache, and 121 were diagnosed with PD. The pooled prevalence of epilepsy was 4.7 per 1,000 population (95% CI: 3.8-5.6) with high heterogeneity (P < 0.01, I-2 = 98%). The prevalence of dementia was found to be 33.7 per 1,000 population (95% CI: 19.4-49.8) (P = 0, I-2 = 100%). The pooled prevalence of headache and PD were found to be 438.8 per 1,000 population (95% CI: 287.6-602.3) (P < 0.0001, I-2 = 97.99%), and 0.8 per 1,000 population (95%CI: 0.4-1.3) (P < 0.01, I2 = 95%), respectively. Conclusions: The findings could be used for appropriate policy measures and targeted treatments for addressing these conditions.