This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Alan Leviton, MD
Neurology/Neuroepidemiology Children's Hospital 300 Longwood Ave Boston, MA 02115-5747

Linda Cowan, PhD
Epidemiology University of Oklahoma Oklahoma City, OK 73190

Karl Kuban, MD
Neurology Children's Hospital 300 Longwood Ave Boston, MA 02115-5747

Arch Neurol. 1990;47(4):381.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—To identify risk "factors for attempted suicide among epileptics" requires that all subjects have epilepsy. Nevertheless, in an attempt to achieve this goal, the authors of a recent report chose controls from among nonepileptics.¹ To draw inferences from a case-control design requires persons with epilepsy who attempted suicide (cases) to be compared with persons with epilepsy who have not attempted suicide (controls). Nonepileptic controls have no place in this study.

To use as controls persons who attempted suicide but who do not have epilepsy results in: (1) failure to identify factors related to an increased risk of attempted suicide, since both cases and controls have made the attempt, or (2) identifying factors that may be associated with epilepsy but not with attempted suicide, since it is epilepsy that distinguishes cases and controls. Such a design does not allow for identification of risk factors of attempted suicide . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?