Summary:Purpose: Patient education is an effective component of comprehensive care. Studies assessing patient's knowledge of their epilepsy are scarce. We report the first objective study evaluating knowledge of epilepsy patients referred to an American tertiary care center.Methods: Two hundred twenty epilepsy patients referred to an epilepsy center completed a knowledge questionnaire. The questionnaire included topics related to safety, compliance, and legal issues of driving and employment. Questionnaire scores were correlated with demographics, number of years with epilepsy, and educational background.Results: Of 220 patients, 175 were included in study analysis. Thirteen percent (n = 28) were excluded because of the diagnosis of nonepileptic seizures, and 8% (n = 17) were excluded because of having a diagnosis other than epilepsy. The average age and number of years with epilepsy was 34.7 -+ 13 and 14.4 f 13.1, respectively. Neither age (Y = 0.20, p 50.01), number of years with epilepsy ( r = 0.09, p = 0.2), nor years of education ( r = 0.34, p <0.01) correlated with questionnaire scores. Thirty percent believed that epilepsy is a mental disorder or contagious. Forty-one percent believed it is appropriate to place an object in a patient's mouth during a seizure to prevent injury. Two of the lowest scores, 13.6% and 47.5%, pertained to the legal issues of driving and employment, respectively.Conclusions: Patients with epilepsy are not knowledgeable about their disorder. This is true regardless of age, educational background, or number of years with epilepsy. There is a need for educational intervention in this population, particularly related to injury prevention and the legalities of driving and employment. Key Words: Epilepsy-Questionnaire-Knowledge-Education-Counseling.Patient education is a necessary component of quality care. Although seizure control is the mainstay of epilepsy treatment, patients must be educated on the daily management and prevention of seizures. Investigators have questionnaire for patients with epilepsy focused on treatment, home circumstances, social effects of epilepsy, employment, and driving. Results indicated that epilepsy patients knew little more about their disorder than did those without epilepsy. In a similar study conducted in the United Kingdom (6), patients without epilepsy demonstrated greater knowledge of medical aspects of epilepsy than did those with the disorder. A study conducted in South Thames, England, concluded that 35% of epilepsy patients felt they were not receiving adequate information about their disorder (7). Goldstein et al. (8) indicated that epilepsy patients in an English tertiary care center were unaware of knowledge concerning seizure type and indications for anticonvulsant drug (AED) therapy. More than 25% of patients in this study reported incorrect information concerning their AED regimen. A variety of studies in different countries have evaluated certain aspects of epilepsy patient education. No published objective data assess the knowledge o...