Objective

This qualitative exploratory study was conducted to explore how anesthesiologists in Palestine provide perioperative care for patients with epilepsy and how they account for the unique challenges relevant to epilepsy while planning perioperative care for patients with epilepsy.

Methods

This study was conducted in an explorative qualitative design. Purposive and snowball sampling approaches were used to recruit the study participants. Qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with anesthesiologists (n = 10) and a neurologist (n = 1). The qualitative data collected in this study were thematically analyzed using the interpretive description methodology to generate themes, subthemes, and patterns.

Results

Three major themes emerged from the collected qualitative data with a total of 18 subthemes. The 3 themes were: 1) considerations/challenges while assessing patients, 2) anesthetic considerations, and 3) recovery considerations. Lack of epilepsy-specific assessment and anesthesia protocols, underuse of neurology referral services, and lack of neuromonitoring were identified.

Conclusion

Findings of this study highlighted the need to develop specific anesthesia protocols for patients with epilepsy. Anesthesiologists and planners of perioperative care should improve collection of patient information and assessment methods, ensure control over seizures, reduce triggers of seizures, and improve patient monitoring approaches. Findings of this study might be used to inform anesthesiologists and decision makers in professional groups, patient advocacy groups, and healthcare authorities to benchmark and improve anesthesia care and services offered to patients with epilepsy. More studies are still needed to quantitatively assess the quality of anesthesia care and services provided to patients with epilepsy.

中文翻译：

---

癫痫患者的麻醉考虑：巴勒斯坦实践中的定性研究结果

客观的

这项定性探索性研究旨在探讨巴勒斯坦麻醉师如何为癫痫患者提供围手术期护理，以及他们如何在为癫痫患者规划围手术期护理时应对与癫痫相关的独特挑战。

方法

这项研究是在探索性的定性设计中进行的。使用目的和滚雪球抽样方法来招募研究参与者。与麻醉师 ( n = 10 ) 和神经科医生 ( n = 1 )进行了定性半结构化深度访谈。本研究中收集的定性数据使用解释性描述方法进行主题分析，以生成主题、子主题和模式。

结果

从收集到的定性数据中出现了三个主要主题，共 18 个子主题。这 3 个主题是：1)评估患者时的考虑/挑战，2) 麻醉考虑，以及 3) 恢复考虑。发现缺乏针对癫痫的评估和麻醉方案、神经内科转诊服务使用不足以及缺乏神经监测。

结论

这项研究的结果强调了为癫痫患者制定特定麻醉方案的必要性。麻醉师和围手术期护理规划者应改进患者信息的收集和评估方法，确保控制癫痫发作，减少癫痫发作的诱因，并改进患者监测方法。本研究的结果可用于告知专业团体、患者权益团体和医疗保健机构的麻醉师和决策者，以衡量和改进为癫痫患者提供的麻醉护理和服务。还需要更多的研究来定量评估为癫痫患者提供的麻醉护理和服务的质量。