The Role of Digital Care Pathway for Epilepsy on Patients’ Treatment Burden: Clinicians’ Perspective

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder, requiring long-term treatment. The workload and impact of treatment causes a significant burden to patients. Digital care pathways may have potential for reducing treatment burden, but there also may be concerns of additional burden caused by digital healthcare. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of digital care pathway on treatment burden for patients with epilepsy. This was a single case study with the digital care pathway for epilepsy in the Wellbeing Services County of North Ostrobothnia (Pohde), in Finland, as a unit of analysis. The data was collected by observing an expert meeting of three clinicians. The meeting focused on five pre-defined domains of treatment burden: Medication burden, Time and travel burden, Financial burden, Social and emotional burden, and Healthcare access burden. The data was analyzed qualitatively and organized based on the pre-defined categories. The results suggest that the digital care pathway supports patients with treatment burden for all the pre-defined domains. Reported benefits include reduced travel, options for remote appointments, providing informational support and easier ways to contact healthcare professionals (HCPs). The main concerns clinicians had was could the use of digital care pathway cause rushed treatment decisions, difficulties of building trust and seeking support from HCPs, and difficulties of using the digital systems. A new theme emerged from the data, Diverse burdens, highlighting the variety of patients with epilepsy with differing needs for treatment.