Policy on Optimal Epilepsy Management (POEM)
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ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01762215 |
Recruitment Status
: Unknown
Verified January 2013 by Dr. John Hixson, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
First Posted
: January 7, 2013
Last Update Posted
: January 7, 2013
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Condition or disease | Intervention/treatment | Phase |
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Epilepsy Seizure Disorder | Behavioral: PatientsLikeMe.com | Not Applicable |
Study Type : | Interventional (Clinical Trial) |
Estimated Enrollment : | 200 participants |
Intervention Model: | Single Group Assignment |
Masking: | None (Open Label) |
Official Title: | Policy on Optimized Epilepsy Management: The Use of an Online Social Media Platform to Collect Patient-Entered Data in the Veteran Population |
Study Start Date : | October 2012 |
Estimated Primary Completion Date : | October 2013 |
Estimated Study Completion Date : | December 2013 |

Arm | Intervention/treatment |
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Experimental: PLM
Upon consenting to the study, participants will be asked to register an account on PatientsLikeMe; no personal identifiers will be required. As part of registration patients create a user name and password for the website and share their email with PatientsLikeMe. Participants will be asked to provide a set of demographic variables and to complete a survey assessing elements of self-management, disease knowledge, social support, and quality of life. Paticipants will then use the PatientsLikeMe website for 6 weeks as much as they wish. After 6 weeks the participants are asked to complete a second survey.
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Behavioral: PatientsLikeMe.com
PatientsLikeMe (PLM, www.patientslikeme.com) is an established medical social networking website that encourages patients with chronic medical conditions to voluntarily share their story and seek support from a common community. Additionally, PatientsLikeMe is actively exploring opportunities to allow patients to report and track important medical data points with the hope that this will improve their longitudinal care. PatientsLikeMe has developed custom functionality for the epilepsy population including seizure tracking, peer support, and printable doctor visit support sheets.
Other Names:
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- Epilepsy Self-Management [ Time Frame: 6 weeks ]The Epilepsy Self-Management Scale (ESMS) is a 38 item scale that assesses "frequency of use of epilepsy self-management practices." A 5-point Likert scale asks participants to respond from never to always. The scale includes 5 subscales that measure medication management, Information management, Safety management, Seizure management, and Lifestyle Management. Higher scores indicate more frequent use of self-management strategies. The scale and its subscale have been previously validated and used in similar studies.
- Epilepsy Self-Efficacy [ Time Frame: 6 weeks ]The Epilepsy Self-Efficacy Scale is a 33-item scale that measures "aspects of efficacy in the self-management of epilepsy". An 11-point Likert rating scale asks participants to choose from 0, I cannot do at all to 10, sure I can do. The scale contains three dimensions: 1) self-efficacy for medication management, 2) self-efficacy for seizure management and 3) self-efficacy for general management issues. Higher scores correspond to higher levels of self-efficacy. The scale has been validated and used in similar studies of website interventions for epilepsy patients.
- Epilepsy Self-Management Information Scale [ Time Frame: 6 weeks ]This is a subscale of the Epilepsy Self-Management Scale, which measures the frequency with which patients use strategies to manage information about their epilepsy

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Ages Eligible for Study: | 18 Years and older (Adult, Senior) |
Sexes Eligible for Study: | All |
Accepts Healthy Volunteers: | Yes |
Inclusion Criteria:
- US Veteran
- Epilepsy (Seizure Disorder)
- >18 years
Exclusion Criteria:

To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT01762215
United States, California | |
San Francisco VA Medical Center | Recruiting |
San Francisco, California, United States, 94121 | |
Contact: Stephanie Van Bebber, MSc 415-221-4810 ext 5914 poemstudy@ncire.org | |
Principal Investigator: John D Hixson, MD |
Responsible Party: | Dr. John Hixson, Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center |
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: | NCT01762215 History of Changes |
Other Study ID Numbers: |
POEM |
First Posted: | January 7, 2013 Key Record Dates |
Last Update Posted: | January 7, 2013 |
Last Verified: | January 2013 |
Keywords provided by Dr. John Hixson, San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center:
Epilepsy Seizure Veteran |
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Epilepsy Seizures Brain Diseases Central Nervous System Diseases |
Nervous System Diseases Neurologic Manifestations Signs and Symptoms |