Abstracts

RATIONALE: To determine the impact of transportation needs to epilepsy clinics on patients and their families.
METHODS: Questionnaires were administered by making telephone calls to 55 adult patients who regularly attended our epilepsy clinic for management of their seizures. Items asked included distance traveled to clinic, time and cost involved to go to the outpatient visit, the need for a driver, and the time and work constraints on those persons who accompany the patient were evaluated.
RESULTS: 33 patients were available to respond and complete the questions. The distance traveled to the clinic was greater than 60 miles in 57% of patients, despite a neurologists office within 20 miles of home in 58% of patients. 64% had a family member living with them drive them to the visit and 12% had a family member outside of home provide transport. 24% of patients had another family member besides the driver accompany them to manage behavior problems in transit or to provide addional history to the physician. Duration of total time away from home was greater than 6 hours in 34% of patients. 46% of the patient`s drivers needed to take time off from work and resulted in lost income for the majority. Only 21% of the patients had to reschedule with the neurologist that they travelled distances to see which was comparable to the 12% rescheduling for transport problems even for local physician appointments.
CONCLUSIONS: Epilepsy patients has significant transport needs to attend at comprehensive epilepsy centers for their continuing outpatient care.These requirements appear to be available for this select group of patients who attend regularly at our clinic. Further studies are necessary to see if this specialty care can be delivered more efficiently and to see if other patients in the community are not able to participate due to lack of availability of transport through family members or other means.