Association of epilepsy and burns - a case control study.

Background: General practitioners play a vital role in reducing risk for people with epilepsy through pharmacological prevention of seizures. Burns are the most common injury sustained during epileptic seizure. This article examines the risk of burns among patients with epilepsy in Victoria.

Methods: A case control study was conducted using the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) from 2000-2005. Odds ratios were adjusted for potential confounders and 95% confidence intervals were calculated comparing burns among epilepsy versus nonepilepsy patients using multivariate logistic regression.

Results: Epilepsy was three times more likely to be associated with burns, with women being five times more likely to be burned. Hot drinks, food, fats, cooking oils, steam and household appliances, hot tap water, hot fluids other than water, and hot heating appliances were all significant causes. The strength of association between epilepsy and burns for these types of causes was consistently higher for women compared with men.

Discussion: This study has shown a strong association between epilepsy and burns in hospital admissions, and identifies the importance of using routine databases for contributing to the limited knowledge about seizure related burns in epileptic patients.