Medication-Related Quality of Life in Thai Epilepsy Patients

Abstract

Background and Purpose: This study aimed to assess medication-related quality of life in Thai patients with epilepsy. The second objective was to evaluate the associations between the medication therapy-related quality of life and patient characteristics. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. A convenience sample of 173 outpatients with epilepsy was recruited from a university hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Inclusion criteria were aged 18 or over who were continuously taking an epileptic drug for at least 3 months, understanding Thai language, and willing to participate in the study. The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measure of Pharmaceutical Therapy for Quality of Life (PROMPT-QoL) was utilized to measure the medication therapy-related quality of life. Pearson's correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple linear regressions were employed to assess the relationships between eight PROMPT-QoL domain scores and patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Results: Mean age was 36.4±9.5 years and approximately 57% were female. Among eight domains of the PROMPT-QoL, the therapeutic relationships with health care providers and psychological impacts of medication use domains yielded the highest (77.9) and lowest (61.9) mean scores, respectively. Seven out of eight PROMPT-QoL domain scores were considered as moderate-to-good. Age, gender, duration of epilepsy, seizure frequency, and treatment preference were significantly associated with PROMPT-QoL domain scores in multivariate linear regression analyses. Conclusions: This study showed that Thai patients with epilepsy had moderate-to-good medication therapy-related quality of life. Healthcare providers should pay more attention to patients' psychological impacts of antiepileptic drugs and those with characteristics related to lower medication therapy-related quality of life. (2019;9:139-146)

Effectiveness of a Self-efficacy Enhanced Program Using Cartoon Animation for Self-care Behaviors Among Schoolchildren with Epilepsy: A Quasi-experimental Study

“…Therefore, encouraging schoolchildren with epilepsy to know about their illness, realizing the importance of taking their medication regularly, 18,31 and having proper and correct care for themselves would allow them to control seizures effectively, resulting in a better quality of life. 32 To create learning and confidence in the abilities of children at this age, promoting self-efficacy by verbal persuasion, modeling, mastering of experiences, and emotion arousing 27 has been introduced. Learning through the media of animated cartoons and colorful animation movements enables children to remember stories well by hearing speech, facial expressions, gestures, and emotions.…”