Public awareness and attitudes toward epilepsy in different social segments in Brazil

Abstract

-Purpose: To assess public awareness and attitudes toward epilepsy in Brazilians of different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Background: Several studies have examined public awareness and attitudes toward epilepsy in various countries but there are no equivalent data for Brazil or South America. Material and Methods: We have applied the survey proposed by Caveness and Gallup , with some modifications and adaptations to four groups (I-IV) of subjects: I-105 individuals accompanying patients to the Ophthalmologic outpatient clinic of the Hospital das Clínicas of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP); II-93 students recently admitted to medical and nursing school; III-101 senior non-medical students; and IV-69 senior medical students. Groups II, III, and IV were students at UNICAMP. Results: Individuals with a low socioeconomic standing had a poor profile of familiarity, knowledge and attitudes toward epilepsy. The pre-university and university students had a relatively good profile when compared to the published international polls. Senior medical students had an excellent level of familiarity and knowledge, but showed no change in their objection to having a son or a daughter marry an epileptic person. Conclusions: Our data suggest that there is a clear-cut relationship between the level of education and the individual's familiarity and attitudes toward epilepsy. Effective elimination of the prejudice toward epilepsy requires specific training and not just general, superficial information about the condition. KEY-WORDS: epilepsy, attitude, prejudice, public awareness. Atitude e percepção sobre epilepsia em diferentes segmentos sociais no BrasilRESUMO-Com o objetivo de avaliar a percepção e a atitude em relação à epilepsia aplicamos questionário de 9 perguntas, modificado de Caveness e Gallup,1980. Foram entrevistados 105 acompanhantes de pacientes da Clínica de Oftalmologia do Hospital das Clínicas da UNICAMP (grupo I); 93 estudantes admitidos em 1996 nos cursos de medicina e enfermagem (grupo II); 101 estudantes do último ano de outros cursos, que não medicina (grupo III); e 69 estudantes do sexto ano do curso de medicina (grupo IV). Todos os estudantes eram da UNICAMP. Responderam que já tinham ouvido falar em epilepsia 87,6% do grupo I e 100% dos demais grupos. Com relação à causa da epilepsia responderam não sei ou respostas erradas: grupo-I 51,1%, grupo-II 30,2%, grupo-III 32,7% e grupo-IV 0%. Os autores discutem os seus achados comparativamente à literatura internacional pertinente e concluem que: 1. Há clara relação entre o nível educacional e familiaridade e atitude em relação à epilepsia; 2. Eliminação efetiva do preconceito em relação à epilepsia exige treinamento específico e não informações superficiais, de cunho amplo sobre a condição. Estes dados suportam a noção de que campanhas nacionais devam ser realizadas para melhor esclarecimento leigo sobre as epilepsias, incluindo a população universitária.

Awareness, attitudes and perceptions on epilepsy in Southern Brazil

“…It has been clearly observed that the level of education infl uences the answers about the disease and leads to less pejorative attitudes to persons with epilepsy, corroborating with other researches designed for similar purposes 4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][13][14][15] . It is inferred that populations with a lower level of education and a lower income probably also have less access to information concerning epilepsy and this contributes to maintaining erroneous concepts about the disease.…”

“…However, this statement could be wrong due to a possible incapacity of this population to recognize a real seizure. These proportions were also observed in the study of Santos and coworkers 7 , in which the proportion of witnessing a seizure was 34% in the non-university population against 73% in the general population. Another aspect observed is that the young adults (17-30yrs) say they have witnessed more convulsive seizures than older people, a fact observed in other studies 4,11 .…”

“…Questionnaires that evaluate the perception of epilepsy in many different social segments have been used by a great number of authors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . Although many limitations have been observed such as understanding the questions, diffi culty in achieving the right answer since there is a broad range of epilepsies, the tendency is to not expose negative positions on the subject and the non-validation of the instrument 23 .…”

“…Brazilian publications conclude that people do not have a satisfactory understanding of epilepsy, indicating that the information acquired is superfi cial and that it is necessary to clarify people concerning this issue at all socioeconomic levels 7,15,[19][20][21][22] .…”

Knowledge and attitudes toward epilepsy among primary, secondary and tertiary level teachers

“…Some of the questions are theoretical and individuals may answer in a politically correct manner, according to someone else s expectations and not reflecting their own opinions. Despite these limitations, this approach has been used in other reports 12,13 .…”