Comparação da acurácia diagnóstica do questionário de rastreamento neurológico para epilepsia aplicado na população geral e numa coorte de crianças Comparison of the diagnostic accuracy of the questionnaire of neurological screening for epilepsy administered to the general population and to a cohort of children

Introduction: Screening for convulsive crises in childhood requires accurate instruments. The aim of this work was to compare the performance of Questionnaires for Neurological Screening for Epilepsy (QNTE) administered to the general population and to a cohort of children under 5 years of age, born in the urban area of Passo Fundo/RS in 2003, including 1687 located in 2007-2008. Methods: The QNTE was administered in the households, extending questions 12 and 14 to first degree relatives. Children with positive results were submitted to the Neurological Diagnostic Interview for Epilepsy (NDIE) and the electroencephalographic exam (EEG), reviewed by blind evaluator, and were considered as the gold standard. The performance of the questionnaires administered to the cohort were compared with the results obtained with the QNTE Porto Alegre and 2 sub-questionnaires that compose it. Results: The sensitivity of the QNTE administered to the cohort was similar to the one obtained in the population of Porto Alegre (z=0.557~p=0.558), with significant difference as compared to sub-questionnaires OMS (z=6.23~ p<0.0001) and ICBERG (z=4.82~ p<0.0001). Specificity was significantly lower: POA (z=10,694~p<0, 0001), OMS (z=17.422~p<0.0001) and ICBERG (z=16.447~p<0.0001). The positive predictive value was significantly different from the QNTE Porto Alegre (z=2.129~p=0.03). The negative predictive value was similar to the others. Conclusion: There was a similarity between the QNTE administered to the cohort of children under 5 and to the general population in sensitivity and negative predictive value. It was inferior in specificity and positive predictive value, suggesting that extending the questions to relatives made the instrument more sensitive but less specific.