Care in Europe after presenting to the emergency department with a seizure; position paper and insights from the European Audit of Seizure Management in Hospitals



Taylor, Claire, Tudur-Smith, Catrin ORCID: 0000-0003-3051-1445, Dixon, Pete, Linehan, Christine, Gunko, Aleksei, Christensen, Jakob, Pearson, Mike, Tomson, Torbjorn, Marson, Anthony ORCID: 0000-0002-6861-8806, Consortium, ESBACE
et al (show 1 more authors) (2022) Care in Europe after presenting to the emergency department with a seizure; position paper and insights from the European Audit of Seizure Management in Hospitals. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY, 29 (7). pp. 1873-1884.

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Abstract

<h4>Background and purpose</h4>This position paper makes recommendations following an audit of care provided to people presenting with a seizure to emergency departments (EDs) in Europe.<h4>Methods</h4>Participating countries were asked to include five hospitals agreeing to identify 50 consecutive seizure patients presenting to their ED between 1 August 2016 and 31 August 2017. Anonymous data were collected to a web database. Where quoted, percentages are mean site values and ranges are the 10th-90th centile.<h4>Results</h4>Data were collected on 2204 ED visits (47 sites, up to six per country, across 15 countries): 1270 (58%) known epilepsy, 299 (14%) previous blackouts but no epilepsy diagnosis, 634 (29%) with a first seizure. Wide variability was identified for most variables. Of those with known epilepsy, 41.2% (range 26.2%-59.6%) attended the ED in the previous 12 months, but only 64.7% (range 37.2%-79.8%) had seen an epilepsy specialist in the previous 12 months. 67.7% (range 34.0%-100%) were admitted, 53.1% to a neurology ward (range 0.0%-88.9%). Only 37.5% first seizure patients (range 0.0%-71.4%) were given advice about driving.<h4>Conclusions and recommendations</h4>It is recommended that in Europe guidance is agreed on the management and onward referral of those presenting to the ED with a seizure; a referral process is created that can be easily implemented; it is ensured that the seizure services receive referrals and see the patients within a short time period; and a simple system is developed and implemented to allow continuous monitoring of key indices of epilepsy care.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: audit, epilepsy, neurological disorders, quality improvement, service evaluation
Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 05 Jul 2022 08:32
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 20:56
DOI: 10.1111/ene.15336
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ene.15336
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3157788