Abstracts

Rationale: Although patient education is critical, limited data is available assessing what patients with epilepsy know about their disorder (Long et al 2000). In addtion, disease knowledge, beleifs and psycho-social adjustment may vary depending on ethnicity and education level. Methods: We conducted a survey of adult population seen at our epilepsy clinic during January to May 2009 regarding knowledge, psycho-social factors, and health care perceptions. We constructed four scales (knowledge[0-9], social acceptance[0-15], trust[0-10],and health care perception[0-15]) by adding sclaed responses.We then compared these across educational attainment (low education: high school or less, and high education: partial or completed college) and to majority/minority race (White and Non-White). We test if differences were statistically significant using t-test. Results: We collected information on 61 adults (mean age 41[range 20-71] and 37[61%] female) with epilepsy of variable severity and multiple etiologies. 49[80%] were White and 44[72%] had high education attainment. Comparisons of the four scales are presented in Table 1. There were no differences in the four scales according to education; knowledge scale was the only scale that showed a significant difference favoring higher knowledge of the disease in the White group (5.9 vs. 4.6, p-value 0.02). Conclusions: This study suggests that disease specific education is important to improve knowledge level of the disorder and emphasis should be given to minority groups.