Abstract

Introduction,
Suspected convulsions and seizures are a common reason for emergency calls to ambulance services. Pre-hospital care is a key element of good quality care for these patients and it is a key determinant of downstream health service activity but there is very little research in this area. Epilepsy is an ambulatory care sensitive condition (ACSC) and the incidence of convulsions and seizures is an important indicator of failed scheduled care. The prevalence of active epilepsy in the UK is 1% and 20-30% of people with epilepsy have more than one seizure per month. Convulsions and seizures result in a large number of emergency calls to ambulance services, the majority of these patients are conveyed to emergency departments (ED), which accounts for much of the health costs of uncontrolled epilepsy.

Methods,
We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of retrospective electronic clinical data for patients with suspected convulsions and seizures over a one year period (August 2011 to July 2012) extracted from a single regional ambulance service (EMAS).
Our aims were firstly to generate descriptive statistics (including incidence) for patients over the age of 18 years treated by EMAS for seizures over a period of a year, and secondly to use regression analysis to identify predictors of transport to hospital in this sample.

Results & Conclusion
There were 6208 patients with chief complaint recorded as suspected convulsions and seizures (suspected Epileptics). There were 3218 (54.4%) male epileptics and 2697 (45.6%) female epileptics. Suspected epileptics are the sixth most common reason for emergency calls to the East Midlands Ambulance Service.