An assessment of epilepsy patients' knowledge of their disorder

Purpose: Patient education is an effective component of comprehensive care. Studies assessing patient's knowledge of their epilepsy are scarce. We rep ort the first objective study evaluating knowledge of epilepsy patients ref erred to an American tertiary care center. Methods: Two hundred twenty epilepsy patients referred to an epilepsy cente r completed a knowledge questionnaire. The questionnaire included topics re lated to safety, compliance, and legal issues of driving and employment. Qu estionnaire scores were correlated with demographics, number of years with epilepsy, and educational background. Results: Of 220 patients, 175 were included in study analysis. Thirteen per cent (n = 28) were excluded because of the diagnosis of nonepileptic seizur es, and 8% (n = 17) were excluded because of having a diagnosis other than epilepsy. The average age and number of years with epilepsy was 34.7 +/- 13 and 14.4 +/- 13.1, respectively. Neither age (r = 0.20, p less than or equ al to 0.01), number of years with epilepsy (r = 0.09, p = 0.2), nor years o f education (r = 0.34, p less than or equal to 0.01) correlated with questi onnaire scores. Thirty percent believed that epilepsy is a mental disorder or contagious. Forty-one percent believed it is appropriate to place an obj ect in a patient's mouth during a seizure to prevent injury. Two of the low est scores, 13.6% and 47.5%, pertained to the legal issues of driving and e mployment, respectively. Conclusions: Patients with epilepsy are not knowledgeable about their disor der. This is true regardless of age, educational background, or number of y ears with epilepsy. There is a need for educational intervention in this po pulation, particularly related to injury prevention and the legalities of d riving and employment.