The difference in perceptions of educational need between epilepsy patients and medical personnel

Purpose: This study was undertaken to determine what patients with epilepsy need to know about their condition, and to discern what differences exist between patients' perceptions of this need and the medical profession's per ception of what patients should know. Methods: Seventy-five consecutive patients with epilepsy and 56 medical per sonnel (residents and nurses) who were working in either Neurology or Neuro surgery Units were studied using a structured questionnaire consisting of 3 subsets with a total of 27 questions. Results: Using a Likert scale, epilepsy patients gave high priority to thei r need for more information about "how epilepsy is diagnosed," "the structu re of the brain" (p < 0.05, p < 0.01, respectively), and "the diet that mig ht prevent the attack" (p < 0.05) than did medical personnel. Our study als o revealed that men were more concerned with questions regarding smoking an d drinking than were women (p < 0.05, respectively), whereas married patien ts gave higher scores in the category of employment (p < 0.01) and contrace ption/pregnancy (p < 0.05) than did unmarried patients. The patients with o ne or more seizures per month rated higher scores on questions concerning t he first aid at the time of attack and dosage of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs: p < 0.05, respectively) than did the patients with fewer than one seizure per month. The patients taking poly AED treatment gave higher scores on six items related to AED therapy than did those receiving monotherapy. No sign ificant differences were found with regard to the length of time patients h ad the condition. nor to educational level or current employment status. Conclusions: An educational program for epilepsy patients should be develop ed on the basis of understanding that there are differences in perspectives among patients with different sociocultural contexts as well as between pa tients and medical personnel.