Detecting health disparities among Caucasians and African-Americans with epilepsy.

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine whether African-Americans and Caucasians who receive care at a tertiary epilepsy center can be distinguished on a variety of demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables.

Methods: We surveyed 111 consecutive patients followed at a tertiary epilepsy center.

Results: On univariate analysis, African-Americans had significantly more seizures (P=0.03), lower scores on the Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire-Specific (Necessity minus Concerns) (BMQ-S) (P=0.01), and higher scores on the BMQ-General (BMQ-G) (P=0.02). In binary logistic regression with race as the target variable, higher seizure frequency remained significantly associated with being African-American (P=0.04). After ordinal regression with seizure frequency as the target variable, being African-American (P=0.04) and higher BMQ-G scores (P=0.02) remained significantly associated with increased seizure frequency.

Conclusion: Compared with Caucasians, African-Americans have higher seizure frequency and scores on the BMQ indicating a higher mistrust of medications. Aside from race, attitudes toward medications are also independently associated with seizure control.