Authors :
Presenting Author: Prasanna Kumar Gangishetti, MBBS – Children's Nebraska
Zahra Haghighat, MD – Assistant Professor, Child Neurology, University of Kentucky
Rationale:
This study aims to understand the misconceptions regarding EEG in the Pediatric Residents at University of Kentucky. Based on the responses, we can educate the Residents and improve overall patient management. Children have various paroxysmal events, that might be concerning for seizures. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is one of the mainstay tools to aid in diagnosis and management of seizure disorder. EEG has a number of limitations. If appropriate questions are not asked, diagnostic errors will occur leading to improper management of patients with seizure disorder. We sent a questionnaire to Pediatric Residents at University of Kentucky to test their knowledge and misconceptions regarding EEG.
Methods:
We sent the following five questions regarding EEG to our Pediatric Residents:
- What is the sensitivity range of EEG test? (multiple choice)
- What is the specificity of EEG test? (multiple choice)
- Does an abnormal EEG with epileptic discharges indicate a person had Epilepsy? (yes or no question)
- Does normal EEG exclude diagnosis of Epilepsy? (yes or no question)
- If patient had a seizure or spell concerning for seizure, should we delay treatment awaiting EEG? (yes or no question)
Results: We had 24 responses: 50% of Pediatric residents had correct responses regarding specificity of EEG and only 25% of Pediatric residents had correct responses regarding sensitivity. Most of the Pediatric residents agreed that normal EEG does not exclude Epilepsy and not to delay treatment awaiting EEG report.
Conclusions:
Given the responses we feel educating the residents regarding the low sensitivity of EEG and the fact that children who do not have Epilepsy can have abnormal EEG will improve overall patient management. Also, emphasizing clinical history and presentation will aid in EEG interpretation.
Funding: No funding