The paper examined the impact of climate change on epilepsy patients (in- and out- patient) that visited Neuropsychiatric Hospital Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. The main independent variables of interest are temperature and relative humidity as climate the two parameters covering a period of eight years 2010-2017. Data of in and out patients diagnosed with epilepsy and other related cases were sourced from the hospital records. The population of the study is 2873 epilepsy patients that visited the hospital within the period of study, comprising of 143 (4.98%) age 0-4 years, 447 (15.56%) age 5-9 years, 963 (33.52%) age 10-19 years, 983 (34.22%) age 20-44 years, 273 (9.50%) age 45-64 years, 36 (1.25%) age 65-69 years and 28 (0.97%) age 70+ years. And for the purpose of analysis and discussion the population of study was further stratified into; Children aged (0-19 years) 1553 (54.05%), adult aged (20-64 years) 1256 (43.72%), older adult aged (65-69 years) 36 (1.25%) and elderly aged (70 +) 28 (0.97%). Data collected were analyzed with the use of single regression Analysis. The study found climate parameters (temperature and relative humidity) make population vulnerable to the risk of epilepsy cases and therefore increases their visits to the hospital. There are positive associations between the number of epilepsy patients in the Neuropsychiatric Akure and the increase in the two climate two parameters (i.e. temperature and relative humidity). Children aged population are more vulnerable to the risk of epilepsy mental ill-health as temperature increases while adult aged population are more vulnerable to the risk of epilepsy mental ill-health as relative humidity increases. Among children aged, the age group 10-19 years emerged to be more vulnerable to the risk of epilepsy with increase in temperature while age group 20-44 years among the adult aged emerged to more vulnerable to the risk of epilepsy as relative humidity increases. Generally, Epilepsy developed more in those adults than the children when sum the contributions from the two parameters. The vulnerability of various age groups population to epilepsy cases was not equally distributed throughout the year 2010-2017 and this is an indication that different age groups responded differently to the effects of temperature and relative humidity variability.. The effective strength of relative humidity is on the children and adult aged than others group (i.e. older adults and elderly), but more on the adult aged while the effective strength of temperature is seen more on the children aged than others group (i.e. Adults, older adults and elderly)
Temperature, Relative Humidity, Patients and Epilepsy cases
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