Abstracts

Rationale: The neuropharmacology of epilepsy is a challenging topic for neurology residents. Evidence suggests that interprofessional clinical teams provide effective educational interventions (Reeves et al., 2008) that translate into improved patient health outcomes. The objective of this study was to determine whether a collaborative didactic session presented by a pharmacist and a neurologist would yield improvements in neurology resident knowledge of neuropharmacologic concepts. Methods: We conducted a non-randomized self-control study to evaluate the impact of an interprofessional educational intervention on neurology residents. A one-hour didactic lecture on the evidence-based selection of antiepileptic pharmacotherapy for focal epilepsy was given by the Departments of Pharmacy and Neurology. Participants completed a pre-intervention survey to provide non-identifiable demographic data and answer questions about the antiepileptic drugs and results of Arm A of the Standard and New Antiepileptic Drug (SANAD) treatment trial. A post-intervention survey reassessed participant knowledge and asked participants to rate their confidence in selecting antiepileptic medications. Statistical testing comparing pre- and post-intervention performance employed Pearson chi square analysis for knowledge questions where the proportion of correct responses was compared for participants overall and by training status. Results: As a result of this interprofessional educational intervention, there was improvement in the percentage of correct responses for all content questions, and performance significantly improved for two of six questions (p < 0.05). One of the two questions showing significant improvement required specific knowledge of results of the SANAD trial, while the other question tested poorly-understood pharmacokinetic properties of lamotrigine (post-test percentage of respondents correct greater than 90%). An additional two of six questions showed that the percentage of pre- to post-test correct responses more than doubled, though this did not reach statistical significance. The remaining two content questions also showed improvement, but the significance of this was diminished by very good pre-test performance (greater than 70% of pre-test responses correct). Analysis also revealed that this interprofessional educational intervention granted trainees significantly greater confidence in their ability to select antiepileptic drugs for patients with focal epilepsy (p < 0.001). Conclusions: This non-randomized self-control study shows that a brief, Pharmacy-Neurology collaborative educational intervention can succeed in teaching neurology residents critical information about antiepileptic drugs, while also increasing their self-confidence with challenging neuro-pharmacologic concepts. An interprofessional educational effort of this kind fosters professionalism while optimizing the use of institutional resources for the benefit of neurology trainees. Future studies of this kind may investigate the usefulness of a multi-session epilepsy neuro-pharmacology curriculum for neurology residents, created and taught jointly by Pharmacy and Neurology faculty. Furthermore, this educational model could be duplicated to create curricula for other neurological subspecialties (for example, the neuropharmacology of neuromuscular disorders) and for higher levels of training (for example, a continuing medical education course for board-certified neurologists). Funding: None