Factors Associated with Hospital Selection by Epilepsy Patients: Medically Intractable versus Pharmacoresponsive Epilepsy

Abstract

Background: Hospital selection reflects the decision-making of patients or their caregivers. We in-vestigated the factors related to hospital selection by patients with epilepsy and compared them between patients with medically intractable epilepsy and pharmacoresponsive epilepsy. Methods: This questionnaire-based cross-sectional study evaluated the patients with epilepsy at a university hospital. The patients were asked to complete a series of questions including their demographic information, socio-economic status, and hospital- and patient-related factors related to their selection of a hospital. Results: In total, 230 patients with epilepsy were analyzed, including 66 patients with medically intractable epilepsy and 164 patients with pharmacoresponsive epilepsy. Acquaintances constituted the primary information source that patients with epilepsy used to select a hospital, followed by information from the internet. No patients with pharmacoresponsive epilepsy gathered information from print media. Approximately 94% of patients with medically intractable epilepsy had visited another medical center. As the most important factors for choosing a hospital, the patients gave an av-erage score of at least four out of five for simple administrative procedures (4.03 ± 0.82), the competence of clinicians (4.06 ± 0.89), excellent equipment (4.04 ± 0.85), and reputation of the hospital (4.02 ± 0.88). Conclusions: This is the first study to analyze the factors related to hospital selection among patients with epilepsy in South Korea. This study may contribute to improvements in the medical sys-tem by presenting insights into the medical behavior of patients with epilepsy.