BACKGROUND: Febrile seizure is the most common neurological disorder in children where 2% - 5% of children under 5 years have experienced febrile seizures. There are hypotheses that anemia may affect febrile seizure and the treshold of neuron excitation.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze whether anemia is a risk factor of febrile seizures.

METHODS: This study used an observational analytic study with a retrospective case control study with gender matching of febrile children aged 6 months to 5 years old hospitalised in kaswari child ward of Wangaya General Hospital Denpasar. In this study, 74 children who met inclusion and exclusion criteria were seperated into two groups, 37 children suffered febrile seizures and 37 children suffered a fever without seizure who were treated in the period from June 2018 to January 2019 obtained through consecutive sampling method. Charasteristic data included gender, age, infection cause, and anemia status. McNemar test was performed for the bivariate analyses.

RESULT: The results showed 21 children (56.8%) were anemic and found 16 children (43.2%) did not experience anemia in the case group. While 11 children (29.7%) were anemic and 26 children (70.3%) were not anemic in the control group. In McNemar analysis test, the P value was 0.041 and the calculation of the odds ratio was 3.0 (95% CI 0.60-10.27).

CONCLUSION: Anemia is a risk factor for febrile seizures. Children with febrile seizure were three times more likely to have anemia in kaswari child ward of Wangaya General Hospital Denpasar.