Study of Awareness, Understanding and Attitude of parents of Children (1-12 yrs of age) with Epilepsy
Journal Title: ​International Journal of Contemporary Medicine surgery and Radiology - Year 2018, Vol 3, Issue 4
Abstract
Introduction: Epilepsy is a highly stigmatizing disease in the developing countries, associated with misconception and discrimination. Studies on general public regarding epilepsy have been carried out in many countries, but there are very few studies regarding awareness, understanding and attitude of parents of children of epilepsy toward epilepsy. Study aimed to obtain a quantitative measurement of the parental awareness, understanding and attitude toward epilepsy, and used univariate analysis to identify individual predictive variables. Material and Methods: It was a prospective study conducted on parents of 100 consecutive children of Epilepsy, who were enrolled in the Seizure Clinic of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, multispecialty, post-graduate teaching hospital of Govt. of Delhi. Structured questionnaire were provided to the parents, their answers/ data tabulated and statistical analysis were performed with SPSS Version 15.0 package. Chi-square test was used to examine the association between the responses and socio-economic and other variables. The P value 0.05 was considered as the cut off value for significance. Results: 82% parents heard about epilepsy but awareness regarding personal acquaintance with an epileptic person or witnessing an epileptic seizure was recorded in only 34% and 39% cases respectively. No association was found between awareness and socio-economic variables like education of parents, family income and area of residence (p value >0.05). A poor understanding of epilepsy as a disease was found among the parents who tended to equate epilepsy to mental retardation (33%) and to insanity (28%). Parent’s education and family income were important determinants of these false beliefs of equalizing epilepsy with mental retardation and insanity (P value 0.013 and 0.028 respectively). Knowledge regarding cause of epilepsy was fair as 40% of parents correctly mentioned nervous system disorder as a cause for epilepsy. 84% parents believed epilepsy is a curable disease by medicines. Education of father was significantly associated with the knowledge (P value 0.042) and that of mother with the cure of epilepsy (P value 0.012). Conclusion: Statistically significant strong association between attitude and understanding regarding cause and cure of epilepsy (p value 0.010 and 0.000 respectively) was found among parents in this study.
Authors and Affiliations
G. P. Kaushal, S B Shrivastva, Monideepa Dutta
Keywords
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- EP ID EP472527
- DOI 10.21276/ijcmsr.2018.3.4.34
- Views 86
- Downloads 0
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