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Evidence summaries

Care Delivery and Self-Management Strategies for Children with Epilepsy

Education- or counselling-based interventions for children with epilepsy might possibly improve some outcomes relating to epilepsy in children and to the impact that epilepsy can have on parents, although the evidence is insufficient. Level of evidence: "D"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included five interventions reported in seven study reports (of which only four studies of three interventions were designed as RCTs) in this review. Different education and counselling programmes were reported for children, children and parents, teenagers and parents, or children, adolescents and their parents. Each programme showed some benefits for the well-being of children with epilepsy, but each study had methodological flaws (e.g. in one of the studies designed as an RCT, randomisation failed) and no single programme was independently evaluated by more than one study.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (unclear allocation concealment, lack of blinding, and inadequate intention-to-treat adherenece), by inconsistency (heterogeneity in interventions and outcomes), and by imprecise results (limited study size for each comparison).

References

  • Fleeman N, Bradley PM, Lindsay B. Care delivery and self management strategies for children with epilepsy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2015;(12):CD006245. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords