Behavior of epilepsy in patients who come to the emergency room Camilo Cienfuegos General Hospital. Sancti Spiritus. 2020-2022

Introduction: Epilepsy is a brain disorder in which a person has repeated seizures; it occurs when changes in brain tissue make the brain too excitable or irritable; as a result it causes repetitive and unpredictable seizures. Objectives: To characterize epilepsy in patients attending the internal medicine on-call service at the General Hospital Camilo Cienfuegos of Sancti Spíritus in the period from January 2020 to December 2022. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional research was carried out, the population was 85 patients older than 20 years who presented the diagnosis of epilepsy and went to the internal medicine ward of this institution in the period from January 2020 to December 2022. Results: 52.9 % were from the 40-49 years age group, men were slightly more affected. The 52.9 % were workers. Patients with no toxic habits predominated for 62.3 % of the total. 51.7 % had a family history of epilepsy. Lack of sleep and stress (61 patients) were the most common risk factors. Focal epilepsy was the most frequent with 52.9 %. There was a clear predominance of carbamazepine with 71.7 % as the most frequent treatment. Conclusions: Patients with epilepsy were predominantly those in the age group between 40-49 years, male, workers were the most frequent; no significant relationship was found between epilepsy and toxic habits, family pathological history of epilepsy presented an important number of the sample. Lack of sleep and stress were among the most registered risk factors, focal seizures were the most represented and carbamazepine was the most used treatment.