Bad News- Diagnosis: Epilepsy in Childhood (Badnews)

University Hospital Basel

Status: Completed

Conditions: Epilepsy in Children

Treatments: Other: assessment of perception and evaluation of physicians advisory skills per questionnaire

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03800992

2018-02397 ks18Weber;

Details and patient eligibility

About

"Bad news" are defined as"any information which adversely and seriously affects an individuals' view of future. Families of chronic ill children are exposed to a high stress load. This project is to investigate the stress burden directly after diagnosis of epilepsy in childhood and coping capabilities in the course of time and how quality of communication at the time of diagnosis effects stress perception and coping behaviour in the following 12 months.

Perceived/ experienced advisory skills of the physician will be assessed by parents and children (older than eleven) on the basis of SPIKES - a Six-Step Protocol for Delivering Bad News.

The subjective perception regarding quality of dialogue in relationship to childrens and their parents quality of life and their coping strategies will be assessed.

Enrollment: 33 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 months to 18 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• newly diagnosed epilepsy (according to International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) criteria):
• at least two unprovoked epileptic fits at intervals of at least 24 hours or
• one unprovoked epileptic fit and a recurrence risk of at least 60% or
• epilepsy syndrome

Exclusion criteria

• children with intensive care treatment as inpatients
• parents with insufficient German language capabilities
• parents and children with exposure to traumatic events in the past three months that could probably lead to post traumatic distress (loss of a loved person, severe traffic accident, raid, violence, sexual assault, war)