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Clinical audit
Auditing adult first seizure assessments
  1. Liam Stuart Carroll1,
  2. Joseph Anderson2
  1. 1Princess Royal University Hospital, London, UK
  2. 2Neurology Department, Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Joseph Anderson, Neurology Department, Royal Gwent Hospital, Cardiff Road, Newport NP20 2UB, UK; joseph.anderson{at}wales.nhs.uk, j_anderson1981{at}hotmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/practneurol-2014-001049

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    Background

    The clinical assessment of individuals with suspected seizures is challenging, and the quality of assessments can vary considerably. Many patients do not see a neurologist, and misdiagnosis is common. Clear clinical guidelines outlining expected standards of care have existed for several years.1 ,2 Measuring how well these guidelines are followed can highlight areas needing improvement, but busy teams may find this process difficult to get going. Inspired by the national paediatric Epilepsy12 audit,3 the International League Against Epilepsy UK chapter set-up an audit group to condense these guidelines to a short list and develop an adult first-seizure assessment audit for use in secondary care. Over the recent years, this audit has been tested at various hospitals and modified to create a tool that provides a useful broad impression of the quality of suspected seizure assessments.

    Using the audit tool

    The audit tool exists as a paper proforma or a Microsoft Access database (figure 1), and both are available online at http://www.ilae-uk.org.uk/shared-audits.html with an accompanying user guide. Assessments are …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors LSC carried out the audit with JA's supervision. LSC prepared the initial draft of the manuscript, which was then revised by JA.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed. This paper was reviewed by Ralph Gregory, Poole, UK.

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