Adjunctive therapy in epilepsy with new antiepileptic drugs: is it of any value?

A total of 97 patients were recruited into a prospective, follow-up study after they were prescribed an adjunctive antiepileptic drug. The patients were followed up over a 6-month period. The interview included questions on Quality of Life, side-effects, adverse events and seizure frequency and severity. We operationally defined patients 'satisfaction' as (i) still on new drug; (ii) experiencing no side-effects (iii) experiencing no adverse events and (iv) had a greater than 50% reduction in seizures. A total of 13 patients (17%) reported being 'satisfied' according to our operational definition.