Met and unmet needs of children with epilepsy in a paediatric tertiary care setting.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the extent to which the health needs were met or unmet in children with epilepsy attending a tertiary care outpatient setting. PATIENTS AND METHOD: A semi-structured interview was used to collect relevant information from the parents. It focused on ascertaining the quality of health care received by the children, including the extent to which attention was given to epilepsy related physical, behavioural, social and educational impairments that were identified by the parents. RESULTS: There was satisfactory seizure control in the majority. Most children received only one anticonvulsant and side-effects were reported to be minimal. A large majority had behavioural problems, and social and educational difficulties to a lesser extent. Parents were concerned about the implications of these problems, but there was little communication about them in the doctor-patient contact. Even where the problems were communicated, parent satisfaction about the interventions was low. Parents identified the availability of more consultation time and provision of more information on epilepsy as their expectations from doctors. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that awareness and communication about the multiple health problems of children with epilepsy are necessary to improve the quality of health care given to them.[1]References
- Met and unmet needs of children with epilepsy in a paediatric tertiary care setting. Perera, H., Rodrigo, G.D. The Ceylon medical journal. (2004) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg
