Epilepsy and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among U.S. adults: National Health Interview Survey 2013, 2015, and 2017

Abstract

BackgroundAmong U.S. adults, over 4 million report a history of epilepsy, and more than 15 million report a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is a common somatic comorbidity of epilepsy. This study assessed the relationship between self-reported physician-diagnosed epilepsy and COPD in a large representative sample of the U.S. adult population and explored possible mechanisms. MethodsCross-sectional National Health Interview Surveys for 2013, 2015, and 2017 were aggregated to compare the prevalence of COPD between U.S. respondents aged ≥18 years with a history of physician-diagnosed epilepsy (n = 1783) and without epilepsy (n = 93,126). We calculated prevalence of COPD by age-standardized adjustment and prevalence ratios of COPD overall adjusted for sociodemographic and risk factors, by using multivariable logistic regression analyses. A Z-test was conducted to compare the prevalence between people with and without epilepsy at the statistical significance level of 0.05. Prevalence ratios whose 95% confidence intervals did not overlap 1.00 were considered statistically significant. ResultsThe overall age-standardized prevalence was 5.7% for COPD and 1.8% for epilepsy. Age-standardized prevalence of COPD among respondents with epilepsy (15.4%) exceeded that among those without epilepsy (5.5%). The association remained significantly different among all sociodemographic and risk factor subgroups (p < .05). In the adjusted analyses, epilepsy was also significantly associated with COPD, overall (adjusted prevalence ratio = 1.8, 95% confidence interval = 1.6–2.1) and in nearly all subgroups defined by selected characteristics. ConclusionsEpilepsy is associated with a higher prevalence of COPD in U.S. adults. Public health interventions targeting modifiable behavioral and socioeconomic risk factors among people with epilepsy may help prevent COPD and related premature death.