Abstracts

Rationale: There is no report on the subject of the difference of knowledge of and attitude to epilepsy between people with epilepsy (PWE) and healthy people (HP).Methods: People with epilepsy and healthy people whose age was more than 18 years old were enrolled from the outpatient clinic and from health promotion center from seven university hospitals, respectively. We surveyed familiarity, knowledge and attitude towards epilepsy using structured questionnaire which consisted of 16 items. Results: Nine hundred and thirty subjects (PWE 217, HP 713) were included in present study. Age and sex was not different between both groups. The familiarity with seizure and epilepsy (two items) was not different in both groups. The knowledge about seizure and epilepsy (7 items) was comparable except question about inheritance of epilepsy between two groups. However, the attitude towards PWE was significantly different in 6 out of 7 items. HP had more negative attitude towards PWE, most strong negativity concerning the matters related to their offspring (e.g. making friendship, marriage).Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that healthy people in our country still have some misconception about epilepsy and have negative attitude towards PWE. It is required public health education and social campaign to lessen negative attitude to PWE.