In the present cross-sectional study, we assessed the marital status of PWE’s within the age range of 18 to 40 years between July and December 2012 in order to acquire basic data and to clarify factors that affect the marital status of PWE’s in Birjand. Our statistical population consisted of PWE’s who referred to the Vali-e-Asr and Imam Reza Hospitals in Birjand City during the study. This study was approved by Committees of Research and Medical Ethics in Birjand University of Medical Sciences (BUMS). Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from the patients.
Epilepsy in the participants was confirmed by taking medical history and physical examination by at least two neurologists. A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted to identify factors contributing to the marital status of PWE’s.
Due to unavailability of EEG/Video EEG at the centers where the study was conducted, diagnosing epilepsy and rule outing pseudo-seizures was based on clinical procedures.
During the study period, 471 patients referred to the hospitals. 97 patients including patients with non-epileptic convulsion or unconfirmed epilepsy, patients addicted to alcohol or any type of opium, patients with major diseases such as Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA), patients with intelligence quotient less than 70 (IQ ≤ 70), patients with irregular visits, and patients who were not willing to participate in the study were excluded (Thus, the overall exclusion rate of people in statistical analysis was 12.9%). In fact our final assessment was performed on 374 patients (179 men and 195 women).
The survey questionnaire contained 21 items/questions with 3 categories: demographic variables (gender, age, level of education), epilepsy profile (age of onset, type) and social status (marital status, concealment of epilepsy from spouse before marriage) (Additional file 1). The medical records of the participants were reviewed retrospectively at each center to characterize clinical features.
Statistical analysis was done with SPSS software (version 19.0 for Windows; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). The analysis included the use of t-test for independent samples, Pearson’s Chi-Square, and Fisher’s exact to evaluate the statistical significance of the differences in the survey responses. Logistic regression analysis was used in an attempt to clarify the potential contributing factors affecting the current marital status of participants while avoiding the possible influence on confounders on the results. In these regression analyses, we controlled age and gender factors to examine their impact on marital status of the participants. The level of statistical significance was set as p-value < 0.05.