Clinician and Patient Readiness to Engage with Community Health Workers at Epilepsy Care Centers

Authors: Felicia Chu, Barbara Jobst, Anna Murray, Trina Dawson, Christine Frisard, Barbara Glidden, Sarah J Kaden, Elaine T Kiriakopoulos

This study looked at how ready epilepsy care teams are to work with Community Health Workers (CHWs). A survey of doctors, nurses, and social workers showed that most knew little about CHWs or their training. Still, many saw gaps in care for patients with epilepsy, especially related to social issues, and believed CHWs could help. Even without much experience with CHWs, most clinicians said they would refer patients to them, and patients seemed open to the idea. This shows there is strong interest in using CHWs to improve epilepsy care.