People with epilepsy who receive care from neurologists may be less likely to die prematurely than their counterparts who haven’t seen a neurologist, a Canadian study suggests.

Researchers followed 23,663 adults with epilepsy for an average of 7.5 years.

The mortality rate overall was 7.2%. However, it ranged from 2.8% for patients seen by neurologists specialising in epilepsy, to 5.6% for patients seen by a general neurologists, to a high of 9.4% for people who didn’t see a neurologist all.

Lead author Mark Lowerison, a researcher at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, said adequate access to neurological care was increasingly recognised as associated with improved outcomes.