In most cases of childhood epilepsy, the onset is before five years of age. This is particularly the case for the more serious types of epilepsy. Despite this fact there is a lack of knowledge about prevalence, risk factors and clinical development of epilepsy in children. Most previous studies are performed in a specialist setting where participants more seriously affected are overrepresented. The prevalence of cognitive and behavioural problems in children with epilepsy is poorly documented, and it is currently unknown whether such problems are caused by epileptic activity. This lack of
knowledge reduces the quality of interventions for children with epilepsy, especially with regard to needs that are not directly related to the epileptic seizures. This project is based on the Norwegian mother and child cohort study (MoBa). MoBa is a population based cohort that includes 114 500 children and their parents. The overall goal is to identify and clincally characterize children with epilepsy within the MoBa cohort, and subsequently use clinical data and questionnaire data and biological material from MoBa to study causes of epilepsy.
