Gender Based Variation in the Prevalence of Cerebral Palsy in Pakistan

Abstract

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurological disorder that affects motor movement, posture, and tone as a result of a persistent encephalopathy acquired during fetal, infancy, or early childhood development. This review aimed to gather the pooled prevalence to assess the gender-based variation of CP in different cities of Pakistan. A comprehensive literature review was conducted in July. 2023 to Nov. 2023, and search terms ‘Cerebral Palsy’ or ‘CP’, ‘gender’ or ‘sex’, ‘Prevalence’, and ‘Pakistan’ were utilized. Published literature from different databases including Google Scholar, PakMediNet, PubMed, and ScienceDirect were employed to retrieve articles. From a total of 6,560 articles published during 2000-2022, 8 were selected. Titles and abstracts of all studies were reviewed, and full texts of relevant studies were obtained from cohort, chain referral, cross-sectional, descriptive retro-prospective, and survey studies. The majority of studies reported a greater male-to-female ratio of CP and a few reasons for this disparity are discussed.