Patterns of daily activity among young people with epilepsy

Abstract

Aim: To: (1) explore how young people with epilepsy spend time on physical activity, screen-time, and sleep in a 24-hour period; (2) compare these findings to young people without epilepsy; and (3) evaluate the findings relative to the Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines for children and youth. Method: The study is based on Canadian data from the 2013 to 2014 ‘Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study’ (HBSC), a cross-sectional sample of young people aged 10 to 17 years. Three groups participated: 163 young people with epilepsy, 3613 young people with non-neurological conditions, and 18 339 population norms. Self-reported activity data were compared across groups. Results: Demographics were similar across groups. Young people with epilepsy spent 5.8 hours per week on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity versus 5.6 hours per week in population norms; 32% met the recommended 1 hour or more per day. Screen-time was 8.7 hours per day versus 7.4 hours per day in population norms; only 5.4% met the 2 hours or less per day recommendation. Sleep duration was 10.2 hours per day versus 9.8 hours per day in population norms, and 50.7% met the recommendation. Overall, 25.7% of young people with epilepsy did not meet any of the guidelines, 60.5% met one, 13.5% met two, and 0.3% met all three recommendations; whereas 2.8% of population norms and 2% of young people with non-neurological conditions met all three recommendations. Interpretation: These data could inform future interventions and alert policy-makers, health care professionals, parents, educators, and advocacy-groups to the low adherence of young people with epilepsy with Canadian guidelines and their risk for poor health. What this paper adds: Young people with epilepsy adhere poorly to Canadian guidelines for daily sleep duration, physical activity, and sedentary screen time. Young people with epilepsy accumulate more screen-time than those with non-neurological conditions or population norms.