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. 2016 Oct 31;10:2197–2207. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S119973

Table S1.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of high and low medication adherence groups

Characteristics MMAS scores
P-value
3 or 4a (high adherence) 0, 1, or 2b (low adherence)
Total of unique patients (%) 47 (76) 15 (24)
Mean age in years (SD) 38.1 (12.6) 35.2 (11.3) 0.40
Sex – males n (%) 20 (42) 8 (53) 0.46
Disease duration in years (SD) 14.2 (13.0) 9.4 (9.2) 0.17
Drug-resistant epilepsyc n (%) 10 (21.3) 1 (6.7) 0.26
Comorbidities n (%) 2.55 (2.3) 1.78 (1.4) 0.15
Epilepsy specialist involvement n (%) 36 (76.6) 9 (60) 0.31
Number of visits n (%) 4.9 (2.6) 6.2 (1.7) 0.03
New diagnosis n (%) 17 (36.1) 5 (33.3) 0.84
EEG requested n (%) 40 (85.1) 13 (86.7) 0.70
MRI requested n (%) 38 (80.9) 12 (80.0) 0.60
Seizure frequencyd (IQR) 0 (0–1) 0 (0–1) 0.52
Academic medical center n (%) 0.88
 Hospital A 7 (14.9) 2 (13.3)
 Hospital B 40 (85.1) 13 (86.6)
Insurance: public n (%) 18 (38.3) 2 (13.3) 0.11
Insurance: private n (%) 29 (61.7) 13 (86.6)
Number of AEDs prescribed (%) 0.58
 ≤1 29 10
 2–3 16 4
 ≥4 1 0
Seizure type n (%) 0.42
 Simple partial 6 (14.0) 0 (0)
 Complex partial 6 (14.0) 4 (28.6)
 Prim generalized 17 (39.5) 4 (28.6)
 Second generalized 10 (23.2) 4 (28.6)
 More than one 4 (9.3) 2 (14.3)
Epilepsy etiology n (%) 0.33
 Cryptogenic 3 (30) 22 (56.4)
 Idiopathic 4 (40) 10 (25.6)
 Symptomatic 3 (30) 7 (18)
Language n (%) 0.32
 English speakers 41 (89.1) 15 (100)
 Non-English speakers 5 (10.8) 0 (0)

Notes:

a,b

Total MMAS score is equal to the total number of questions on the MMAS-4 questionnaire to which the patient answered “no”.

c

Drug-resistant epilepsy was defined as failure of adequate trials of two tolerated and appropriately selected AED schedules (whether as monotherapies or in combination) to achieve sustained seizure freedom.

d

Number of seizures represents the mean number of seizures reported during the previous 6 months of the last visit for epilepsy within the care period. The seizure frequency values were not normally distributed. Therefore, the median values for seizure frequency were reported and P-values were obtained from a two-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Abbreviations: SD, standard deviation; AED, antiepileptic drug; EEG, electroencephalogram; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; MMAS, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale; IQR, interquartile range.