Abstracts

Increasing awareness and decreasing stigma about epilepsy are priorities of the World Health Organization (WHO). There has been one published evaluation of an epilepsy education program for healthy children. This evaluation examined knowledge change following the program. There are no published studies of children[rsquo]s attitudes toward people with epilepsy, nor any evaluations of programs aiming to change attitudes. The objective of this study was to evaluate an epilepsy education program designed for grade five students to improve their knowledge and attitudes about epilepsy. A stratified cluster randomized trial was conducted. Schools from 2 Ontario school boards were randomized to either the intervention (education) arm or delayed intervention control arm. Analyses were conducted using linear regression adjusted for clustering. Pilot study results indicated that the evaluation questionnaire has acceptable reliability (intra-class correlation coefficients [ge] 0.70; Cronbach[rsquo]s alpha [gt] 0.70) and validity. The full study randomized a total of 24 schools (783 individuals). At baseline, on average, 40% of knowledge questions were answered correctly and attitudes were neutral (32/50 mean score where 50/50 would be most positive attitudes). One month following an epilepsy education program there was a highly significant increase in the intervention group compared to the control group in both knowledge (p[lt]0.0001) and positive attitudes (p[lt]0.0001). Significant predictors of post-intervention knowledge were [ldquo]heard of epilepsy prior to program[rdquo] and [ldquo]seen TV commercial about epilepsy prior to the program[rdquo]. Significant predictors of post-intervention attitudes were sex, language spoken at home, knowing someone with epilepsy and having seen a seizure prior to the program. The epilepsy education program evaluated was successful in improving knowledge and increasing positive attitudes about epilepsy. Future research could investigate if these changes hold over a longer period of time. Ideally, future research could investigate whether these changes translate into decreasing the stigma felt by people with epilepsy. (Supported by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Research Alliance for Children with Special Needs (RACSN) [fellowships], the Child Health Research Institute and Lawson Health Research Institute [internal research grants].)