Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET)

Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET) is a series of 1 and 2-day courses developed by the British Paediatric Neurology Association (BPNA) in response to concerns about standards of care for children with epilepsy in the UK. PET has been running in the UK since 2005 and is now being established worldwide.

PET is aimed at paediatricians, medical officers and emergency department professionals. It aims to improve the diagnosis of epileptic and non-epileptic events; improve the standard of care; and raise awareness of when to liaise with a Paediatric Neurologist, a children’s epilepsy expert.

The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) endorses PET. The ILAE identified PET as an effective, sustainable format to teach safe standard epilepsy practice to clinicians across all levels of healthcare. PET has been critically reviewed by Paediatric Neurologists around the world who have concluded that this course teaches “safe standard epilepsy practice to clinicians, applicable to children in all countries” and are “sensible, practical and pragmatic”.

PET courses

PET courses are running worldwide and every PET course is listed on this website.

PET1: 1-day course recommended for all doctors and nurses who contribute to the initial or ongoing care of a child experiencing paroxysmal disorders in the acute and community setting.
PET2: 2-day course covers general aspects of epilepsy (history taking, differential diagnosis, investigation etc) and concentrating on epilepsies in infants and young children. Recommended for all doctors and nurses who care for young children with epilepsies.
PET3: 2-day course concentrating on the epilepsies presenting in older children and adolescents and transition to adult services. Recommended for all doctors and nurses who care for older children, adolescents and young adults with epilepsy.

Each PET course has interactive large and small group sessions. There are many opportunities within each course to consider difficult cases, share ‘experience in the real world’, and debate ‘the evidence’. The size of small groups is limited to 8 attendees, to ensure everyone is able to contribute and gain the most from the learning experience.

Each course has standardised course materials that are taught to the same high standard worldwide by a trained local faculty of experienced paediatric neurologists and paediatricians with an expertise in epilepsy. A course handbook is provided to attendees.

PET is evidence based, refers to internationally recognised guidelines, and provide a consensus view for paediatricians. Content is internationally peer reviewed. Course materials are updated every 3-years. PET1 was last updated in March 2023 and PET2/3 was last updated in November 2023. It is recommended that the courses are completed in sequence (as each course presumes prior knowledge from the previous one) and are repeated every 5 years. Alternative to repeating the course every 5 years, the newly developed PET4ward course has been introduced to follow on from PET123 for those wishing to be kept up to date with new and breaking topics in paediatric epilepsy. Anyone wishing to attend the PET4ward course must have attended the PET123 courses.

PET is supplemented by the BPNA Distance Learning Unit 6: Epilepsy & Paroxysmal Disorders for health professionals who would like to learn more.

Feedback, Learning and Outcomes:

We routinely survey all PET1 attendees worldwide 6-months after attending the course, to record changes in attendees’ attitudes and practice. In January 2024, our analysis of this, entitled Reducing epilepsy diagnostic and treatment gaps: Standardized paediatric epilepsy training courses for health care professionals, was published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology (DMCN). This was the largest evaluation of a global epilepsy training course. We analysed survey results from a total of 7528 participants who attended 252 1-day PET courses between 2005 and 2020 in 17 low, middle, and high-income countries. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate the improvement in knowledge and clinical behaviour among healthcare professionals after attendance at Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET) courses.

We found:

98% of respondents rated PET courses as excellent or good
Participants demonstrated knowledge gain, answering a significantly higher proportion of questions correctly after the course (88%) compared with before the course (75%)
98% of respondents improved their own clinical practice as a result of attending PET. This included:

75% reporting improvements in their history taking
72% reporting an improved ability to distinguish between epileptic and non-epileptic seizures.
47% always providing first aid and out-of-hospital advice to parents and caregivers

64% of respondents made changes to their wider clinical service after attending the course. Of these:

68% reporting introducing or improving epilepsy training in their local hospital
56% using a structured formulation to history-taking
31% improving the management of prolonged seizures in their unit

Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET)

Resources

International PET