Abstracts

A recent Cochrane review concludes that there is insufficient evidence that people with epilepsy benefit from specialist nurse intervention, and that further research is needed to investigate the role and effectiveness of specialist epilepsy nurses. We tested the hypothesis that structured epilepsy nursing in an outpatient neurology clinic improves quality of life (QOL) measured by the questionnaire QOLIE-89. 114 adult patients with uncontrolled epilepsy were randomly assigned either to an intervention (n=58) or a control (n=56) group. The intervention group was offered extended follow-up and teaching with one nurse permanently attached to the project in close collaboration with a neurologist. An interactive, 1-day group education programme was arranged. The nurse was present at as many outpatient consultations as possible to enable reliable, mutual assessment of the patient. The nurse performed follow up by telephone at least every three months. The overall goal was availability and continuity. All patients completed the QOLIE-89 before randomization and after 2 years. Student[rsquo]s t-test was used to compare QOLIE-89 data between groups; paired t-test was used to compare patients before and after intervention. QOL was significantly improved in the intervention group (p=0.019), but not in the control group (p=0.13). An improvement was mainly seen in the sub-items for [ldquo]health discouragement[rdquo] (p=0.007), and [ldquo]medication effects[rdquo] (p=0.035). The difference between the groups was not significant. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a significant effect of a structured nurse intervention programme in QOL of patients with epilepsy. (Supported by GlaxoSmithKline)