Objectives: To assess the utilization and efficiency of the primary he
alth care (PHC) centres in the delivery of care to epileptic patients.
Design: Sixty health centres were randomly selected to represent vari
ous socioeconomic classes and urban/rural population in Riyadh. The st
udy was conducted during August 1993. A predesigned data form was used
to ascertain socio-demographic characteristics of patients, clinical
features, health centre profile and health care resources available to
epileptic patients. PHC doctors completed these forms for all epilept
ic patients found in their health centre register which entered in PC
computer for analysis. Results: At the end of the study, 131 epileptic
patients were found in the health centre register which accounted for
0.05% (0.03% in urban and 0.1% in rural). The majority of patients 80
.2% were 30 years old or below. Out of all patients 77.1% attended hea
lth centres for up to six times. At least one referral to hospital or
admission were recorded in 53.4% and 20.6% of patients respectively. P
HC doctors thought that 31.3% were not compliant. Family history of ep
ilepsy was positive in 12.9% of patients. Conclusion: The number of ep
ileptic patients registered as epileptic at health centres were too lo
w. There is a need to design a policy for detection of cases, training
of PHC doctors and cost effective mobilization of resources to PHC ce
ntres so to attract more epileptic patients to use the health centres.