4.2 Safety
The education was not presumed to decrease the severity of side effects
directly, especially those related to cognition, coordination and
academic performance, but with gaining more knowledge about the side
effects of AEDs, the patients and their caregivers will report them more
considerably and will not overestimate the non-specific side effects
like headache and tiredness. As a result of better understanding of the
medications’ side effects, caregivers in this study also reported new
side effects experienced by their children to the neurologist and
clinical pharmacist after receiving the education, which is probably
attributed to more motivation to report any experienced side effect
during the educational session. Side effects score was found to be
significantly and inversely correlated with QoL, which expected since as
side effects increases, the quality of life of the patient will be
diminished. It was also directly correlated with number of medications
(i.e. AEDs) at both baseline and follow-up, as when the patient is
prescribed more medications, he/she will experience more side effects.
Our results are similar to those observed by May et al. (2002)
which was, as mentioned above, a study that evaluated the effect of
MOSES educational program on PWE with regard to different aspects
including knowledge about medications and reporting of their ADR. Better
knowledge about therapy resulted in better tolerability of AEDs and
ability to differentiate between a non-specific complaints that is not
related to AED therapy and an actual ADR from AEDs. Patients were also
more encouraged to ask about their medications and to get more
information about side effects (23). Results of our study were also
consistent with those reported by Moura et al . (2016) who
evaluated the effect of education about AEDs side effects on adherence
and concluded that, despite knowledge about the possible side effects of
AEDs, it did not affect their reported adherence to medications (25).