An Analysis of Disorders Presenting at a Pediatric Neurology Outpatient Clinic: A Report from Turkey

Abstract Neurological problems constitute an important part of diseases in children. Studies evaluating neurological diseases in children collectively and reporting their types and rates are very few. We report the clinical and laboratory spectra of children presenting with neurological diseases to our clinic. The charts of patients who presented for the first time to the only pediatric neurology outpatient clinic in the region during a year were evaluated retrospectively. A total of 88,785 patients were seen at the Meram Faculty of Medicine pediatric outpatient clinics in 1 year; 5.5% (4,904) of these patients were seen at the child neurology clinic and 1,807 patients (36.8%) were seen for the initial evaluation. Medical charts of 1,685 (93.2%) patients were reviewed: 952 (56.5%) were male patients and 733 were females. The mean age was 5.77 ± 4.92 years; 30.9% of the patients had a similar disease in the family. The top three presenting complaints that led to hospital seen were seizures (12.2%), paroxysmal events (10%), and headaches (9.2%). The most common diagnoses were epilepsy (18%), headache (8.6%), and developmental delay (7.8%). Our study describes the characteristics of the large number of patients seen for the first time in the child neurology outpatient clinic.