Paediatric epilepsy team hold first adolescent awareness evening

Womens And Child Health

The paediatric epilepsy team held their first ever adolescent epilepsy awareness evening in November, to educate and engage their patients in a new way. They had general informal talks regarding epilepsy, followed by mingling and food at the pilot event.

Dr Sanah Ali, ST7 Paediatric Registrar, said: “We know that this cohort can be particularly challenging with compliance and also mental health issues, so we held the event to try and incentivise them to take ownership and control of their disease, and also meet others that may be in a similar situation to themselves.

“We wanted to host the evening to gauge if patients and their families found it useful and to try and find out what they would like to see from the medical team - other than standard outpatient appointments.

“We had a remarkable turnout, and it was a huge success. Everyone who attended asked for more events to be arranged, which the team are already planning. The patients really engaged well with each other, and all fed back that they felt ‘less alone’ as they were able to meet other people with their condition.

“The youngsters also fed back that they liked the talks we did and would like more in the future to help understand epilepsy better. They created their own WhatsApp group to keep in touch with one another.

“The parents who came also fed back that they enjoyed seeing their children socialise in a safe environment and that they enjoyed meeting other parents to get advice and chat to other people going through the same things as them.

“Since the evening, we have had patients contact us regarding their epilepsy, so we truly believe it does help with compliance and engagement with the team. By the staff being seen in a less formal environment, it helps to break down the barriers that patients may feel are there, so they can ask questions and engage with us better.”

The team plan to arrange another adolescent epilepsy evening in the summer and going forward hope to arrange these bi-annually. From the back of this success, they are in the process of arranging an event for younger patients and their families.

Attendees and colleagues at the paediatric epilepsy awareness evening