Designing and delivering an epilepsy course for GPs to help meet their educational needs

BACKGROUND With the recent publication of comprehensive evidence based guidelines and the inclusion of epilepsy in the new GMS contract in the UK the importance of epilepsy to primary care has become clear. There seem to be many deficiencies in GP service provision for epilepsy including a lack of structured review and poor information provision for patients. Therefore, it is likely that further education on epilepsy management is essential. AIM To ascertain what GPs wish to learn about epilepsy and their preferences as to which methods should be used to achieve this. To use this information to design and then deliver an epilepsy teaching programme for GPs. DESIGN OF STUDY Cross-sectional. SETTING Primary care, Lothian region, Scotland. METHODS A questionnaire was designed and delivered to 50 GPs to obtain information related to the aims of the study. These results were used to aid the design of an epilepsy teaching day for GPs. This course was then delivered in West Lothian, Scotland. RESULTS GPs seemed to prefer weekday, half-day teaching using multidisciplinary lectures and case studies. Drug treatment, referral guidelines and diagnosis were considered the most important topics and the teaching programme received mainly positive feedback from participants. CONCLUSION It would appear that a short course on epilepsy management, when designed with the preferences of participating GPs in mind, can be readily delivered and well received.