Awareness and Knowledge on Epilepsy Among Undergraduate Medical Students in Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder which affects millions of people throughout the world. However, it has been discovered that there is a great degree of ignorance regarding the science of epilepsy among the general masses as well as the populace of medical students. Studies have been conducted whose results have shown that, there has been fabrication regarding the clinical presentation & treatment of epilepsy among the common man. Numerous appear to link epilepsy to evil spirits and possession that can be healed by spiritual treatments by certain specialists given the designations of 'demonologists', 'paranormal investigators' or 'mystics'. In such circumstances, medical students can prove to be a major source to educate the society at large. Therefore, it is crucial that their knowledge & attitude towards epilepsy is accurate and thus, must be evaluated at an early stage in their medical career, so that these future physicians may play a pivotal role in the public awareness of epilepsy. Method:This study was conducted in Pakistan, at a Government sector medical college, namely, Karachi Medical and Dental College. This is a cross-sectional study. Data was collected between October to December of the year 2014. 270 medical students were given the KAP (knowledge, attitude & practice) form of epilepsy to fill out. The software used to interpret and tabulate the results was SPSS v.16 for Windows. The chi-square test was employed to determine the proportion of knowledge of epilepsy among medical students. The p-value calculated was equal to 0.05. Findings:In this study, 270 medical students were recruited, of which 90 were males (33.3%) where as 180 were females (66.6%). The ages of the student participants were within the range of 18 This article is available at: www.intarchmed.com and www.medbrary.com 2 to 24 years. The analysis of our study demonstrates that: 85.1% of the medical students consider epilepsy to be a neurological disorder; 6.66% believe epilepsy is an infectious disease; 4.44% believe it to be a hereditary disease, whereas, 3.7% of the students reckon it is a psychiatric illness. Generalized tonic clonic seizures was deemed to be the most common form of epilepsy (25.5%) with complex partial seizures being the least common form (1.85%), as well as relatively unknown by the students.It was discovered through this study that, students were much less acquainted with the knowledge regarding the treatment of the disorder: multiple drug therapy was considered as the treatment by 56.66% of the students, spiritual treatment by 3.7%, spiritual treatment with medication by 20%, surgical treatment by 17.4% & 2.22% deemed epilepsy as a self limiting disease. Conclusion:It has been observed with this survey that the medical students of Pakistan are well aware of the knowledge of epilepsy and it being a medical condition. However, the students need to be educated early on in their training to be physicians, about certain aspects and details of the neurological disorder, for instance, th...

Knowledge, Attitude, Practice with respect to Epilepsy in final year M.B.B.S. medical students

“…Similar suggestions are made in similar other studies. 2,4,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]…”

“…However only few studies are present amongst medical students. 9,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Undergraduate medical students frequently come across epilepsy patient during their clinical postings in hospital. They may also come across such cases during their casualty postings.…”

Association of Dyslipidemia and Hyperhomocysteinemia in epileptic patients on carbamazepine monotherapy.

“…1 Global prevalence of epilepsy is between 5 -10 cases per 1000 persons and it matches the upper quartile in Pakistan being 9.9 per 1000 persons. 2 The mortality rate in epileptic patients is increased 2 -3 folds as compared to the general population moreover sudden death is 20 times more often than general population. 3 The prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are incrementing rapidly and are the leading cause of death in the developing sphere.…”