Beliefs and Attitudes about Childhood Epilepsy among School Teachers in Two Cities of Southeast Brazil

Abstract

Childhood epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder associated with profound psychosocial limitations epileptic children's routine. Lack of information and inappropriate beliefs are still the factors that most contribute to the stigma and discrimination. This study aimed at characterizing teacher's beliefs and attitudes at regular and special schools in two cities of southeastern Brazil where students with epilepsy studied. Fifty-six teachers of public regular schools and specialized educational institutions for children with disabilities from two cities of Southeast Brazil who had epileptic children in their classroom completed the Brazilian version of The Epilepsy Beliefs and Attitudes Scale: Adult Version and answered a data sheet about sociodemographic characteristics. The results showed that no significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) have been found between the beliefs and attitudes of teachers in mainstream and special schools but both schoolteachers had more inappropriate beliefs and attitudes than appropriate ones against childhood epilepsy. These findings raise an important issue, providing us with the knowledge that epilepsy is still a condition which is surrounded by wrong beliefs. Also, educational programs could help reduce the gaps in knowledge about how such disease has been perceived worldwide.

Epilepsy misconceptions and stigma reduction: Current status in Western countries

“…34–40 Martiniuk et al, developed the “Thinking about epilepsy” questionnaire, which they used in a number of studies, 41–43 and Zanni et al, used the Brazilian version of The Epilepsy Beliefs and Attitudes Scale (EBAS). 44 …”

An educational campaign toward epilepsy among Italian primary school teachers

“…School teachers with correct knowledge of and appropriate attitudes toward epilepsy could put the social reflections of epilepsy in a correct perspective, thus contributing to the reduction of stigma. Public knowledge and attitudes toward epilepsy have been investigated in several countries and have been found to be mostly inadequate [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Time spent in teaching and experience with students with epilepsy predict better knowledge of the disease [7,10,16].…”

Beliefs and attitudes towards child epilepsy: A structural equation model

“…The 46 items are divided into three dimensions: neurological, metaphysical and environmental/psychophysical with 13, 7, and 26 items, respectively [5]. Additionally, the 46 items address both positive and negative beliefs and attitudes towards epilepsy [2].…”

“…Epilepsy is the most common chronic neurological disease in childhood, affecting roughly 5 to 10 children in every 1,000, with profound repercussions in the cognitive, psychological and social areas [1,2]. Such impacts arise from interactions between multiple factors involving the clinical aspects of the disease and the adverse effects of drug treatments, as well as the expressive negative psychosocial connotations based on inappropriate beliefs and attitudes, which strengthen the social stigma and expose the children affected by the disease to discriminatory and prejudiced attitudes, negatively affecting their quality of life [3,4,5].…”

“…The lack of information regarding the disease is believed to be an important contributing factor to the persistence of enormous social stigma, beliefs and inappropriate behavior [2,5,6,7]. However, other factors can also influence the propagation of such actions, thus efforts aimed at identifying these are very important since these factors need to be considered when implementing educational actions to reduce the stigma, beliefs and negative attitudes of the general community towards the affected children.…”