Disobedience and driving in patients with epilepsy.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Motor vehicle accidents direct legislators to ensure pubic safety. We attempted to characterize and quantify driving risk in patients with seizures (PWS). METHODS: We delivered 12-question surveys to 287 consecutive PWS at an epilepsy clinic in Florida. Illegal and disobedient driving practices were analyzed. RESULTS: Eighty-three of 236 (35.2%) PWS were eligible to drive and 62.3% were ineligible with a seizure in <6 months (P<0.001, 95% CI 0.57-0.70). Among the ineligible responders, 23.8% (35/147) of ineligible responders were illegally driving (14.83% of cohort); 11.86% (28/236) of PWS were disobedient refusing to obey the law, and 8.9% (21/236) of PWS were defiant and knew the law. Sadness (75/236, 31.8%) was the most common reaction to restriction, but disobedient PWS were angry (10/28, 35.7%). CONCLUSION: Overall, a small number of PWS are disobedient and illegally driving. A targeted approach to high-risk drivers with repeated verbal and supplemental driving information may help avoid unnecessary universal physician reporting for PWS.