Abstracts

Rationale: There is an increasingly large population of Hispanic patients in the United States and there has been little research in the area of this community’s understanding of and attitudes toward epilepsy and its treatments. Methods: A 15-question survey was developed using previous studies as examples. The survey was completed in Spanish by 127 adults whose primary language was Spanish in a community health clinic in Chicago. The data was analyzed using SPSS 15.0 and χ2 tests and a p value of <0.05 was considered significant. Results: Hispanic-Americans in Chicago are largely familiar with epilepsy with 73% reporting that they had either heard of or read about epilepsy. More people in the younger age group reported a familiarity with epilepsy (p=0.008). Familiarity with epilepsy, however, did not correlate with the level of education. Sixty eight percent of people would not object their son or daughter marrying someone with epilepsy. Those who have witnessed a seizure as well as those with less education were more likely to object to (p=0.022 and p=0.022 respectively). Eighty four percent of respondents indicated that a person with epilepsy was able to attain a normal level of intelligence. Epilepsy was thought to be a form of insanity by 7%. Overall, 68% of respondents indicated that a person with epilepsy could hold the same jobs as a person who did not have epilepsy. This response differed significantly between people with a higher (86%) versus lower (60%) level of education (p=0.006). Beliefs about the causes of epilepsy were as follows: abnormal brain activity 65%, heredity 44%, brain injury 32.3%, birth injury 27.5%, excessive worry 20.5%, blood disorder 14.2%. A magic or religious interpretation of the illness was indicated by 6.3%. A lower level of education significantly correlated with less knowledge of the causes of epilepsy. Conclusions: There is a large gap in the literature at this time regarding the attitudes towards and beliefs about epilepsy in the Hispanic-American population. There are significant differences among different age groups as well as those with different levels of education regarding their knowledge of epilepsy. It is important that neurologists be aware of these differences so that education initiatives can be developed in order to better inform and care for this growing population.