Comparison of clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and management of febrile seizures

Febrile seizures are one of the most common neurological conditions in childhood, affecting 2-5 percent of all children and are most common seizure disorder in children aged 6-60 months. Therefore, developing evidence-based guidelines is important for improving the healthcare quality for those patients. We have compared The Croatian Society of Pediatric Neurology (HDDN) guidelines for the diagnosis and therapy of febrile seizures with the guidelines of American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) guidelines and several other national guidelines. All of the guidelines we have studied were based on American guidelines with slight differences between them. The main difference between the American and Croatian guidelines is that the Croatian guidelines recommend hospitalization for all children with the first episode of febrile convulsions, while according to American guidelines, hospitalization is not necessary in children older than 18 months with the first episode of simple febrile convulsion. Although our national guidelines show many similarities to guidelines of American Academy of Pediatrics and other national guidelines, there are certain differences that are characteristic for Croatian healthcare system. Since the Croatian guidelines were published six years ago, in the near future it would be important to reevaluate and update the guidelines with the aim of clinical practice improvement