Data set for Trigeminal neuralgia patients in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Description
This is a data set was from a facility based cross sectional study aimed to assess clinical characteristics, treatment, and associated factors in Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) patients in a Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All patients with confirmed TN who presented to the four health facilities during the six month study period were included in the study. All the patients were interviewed and examined by board certified neurologist. Structured questionnaires were utilized to extract demographic, clinical, and imaging data from all the patients after informed consent was obtained. Descriptive analysis, Chi-square, student t-test, binary and multivariate analyses were used to describe the results. The data set contains the following data: demographic, clinical characteristics related to trigeminal neuralgia such as classification, duration of illness, involved side, involved nerve branch, history of dental extraction, quality of pain, triggering factors, triggering zone, treatment satisfaction, type of medications, and comorbidity. Our study participant's age range between 21 and 78 years. The gender distribution was equal. Additional data related to associated autonomic dysfunction, family history of trigeminal neuralgia, symptoms changes with seasonal changes, history of surgical procedures, and brain imaging findings. These data represent a data obtained by cross sectional at neurological out patient’s clinics. Therefore, it should be analyzed and interpreted accordingly. We decided to share these data with other colleagues because; this is the first study about Trigeminal neuralgia in Ethiopia, if not the sub-Saharan Africa. Such paucity of clinical information from the sub Saharan Africa regarding trigeminal neuralgia resulted in wide spread miss management, delayed diagnosis, and sub-optimal treatment of patients with TN in SSA Africa. Thus far, this is the first of trigeminal neuralgia patients in Ethiopia. Therefore, we decided to characterize their clinical features and simultaneously opt to determine the cause of delayed diagnosis and treatment satisfaction of our patients. One of the most important finding from our study was the high prevalence of dental extraction (41%) among TN patients in Ethiopia. This information is vital to us in such as way close to half of our patients with TN initially visited dental health professional for trigeminal-related facial pain. These findings indirectly indicate the level of miss diagnosis and delayed diagnosis our patients face currently in Ethiopia. Furthermore, this data indicate those patients who initially visited dental office for their facial pain were tends to be on higher dose of carbamazepine compared to those without history of dental extraction. These findings were explained by the combined adverse effect of delayed diagnosis and extraction of healthy tooth resulted in requirement of higher dose of carbamazepine to control the facial pain. This is an ongoing project by including more patients with TN.