The Efficacy of Psychosocial Assessment at Epilepsy Monitoring Unit: A Preooperative Cohort Study

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K16623
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neurosurgery
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: FUJIKAWA MAYU 東北大学, 医学系研究科, 大学院非常勤講師 (80722371)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: てんかん / 心理社会的評価 / リハビリテーション心理学 / 脳神経外科 / QOL / セルフスティグマ / 患者教育 / 就労支援

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Epilepsy care system has been called for a holistic model that directly improves patients with epilepsy's social participation and quality of life (QOL). While the primary purposes of epilepsy monitoring unit are diagnostic and pre-surgical evaluation, the unique contribution of this study is to implement the psychosocial assessment by psychologists and to examine its effect on the prognosis of epilepsy treatment and QOL of patients with epilepsy. The results indicated that patients showed moderate to high satisfaction towards the EMU program. A thorough psychosocial assessment revealed high epilepsy self-stigma, low disability acceptance, and vocational issues directly impacted patients' QOL, which in return impacted medication adherence and doctor-patient relationship. This result would highly contribute to the development of an evidence-based comprehensive EMU program and open new opportunities for improving the prognosis of patients with epilepsy.

Free Research Field

てんかん学、リハビリテーション心理学、神経心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義は、診断や術前精査が主目的のてんかんモニタリングユニット入院精査に、心理士の心理社会的評価を導入し、医学・心理・社会のデータを同時解析したことで、患者の全体的な生活の質（QOL）の要因を同定したことにある。その結果、医学面のみならず心理社会的要因がQOLに直結していることが明らかになった。故に、てんかん診療には、心理的介入や地域支援、社会的啓発活動を内包したシステム構築が急務である。