Epilepsy risk in offspring of affected parents; a cohort study of the “maternal effect” in epilepsy

Abstract

Objective: To assess whether the risk of epilepsy is higher in offspring of mothers with epilepsy than in offspring of fathers with epilepsy. Methods: In a prospective population-based register study, we considered all singletons born in Denmark between 1981 and 2016 (N = 1,754,742). From the Danish National Patient Register since 1977, we identified epilepsy diagnoses in all study participants and their family members. Cox regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusted for relevant confounders. Results: We included 1,754,742 individuals contributing > 30 million person-years of follow-up. The incidence rate of epilepsy i..