Knowledge and attitude towards epilepsy among pharmacy students from Mumbai university

Abstract

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic disorder of the brain that affects people worldwide. The overall prevalence (3.0-11.9 / 1,000) and incidence (0.2-0.6/1,000) of epilepsy in India are comparable to the rates of high-income countries. The high prevalence of negative attitudes towards epilepsy has been highlighted by several studies. Pharmacy students represent a better-educated section of society regarding drugs and have the potential to create awareness, and influence attitudes towards the disease. Thus, it is important that they have the appropriate and updated knowledge and appropriate attitude towards epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs. Objective of the present study was to determine the Mumbai University pharmacy student’s awareness about epilepsy, so as to know the kind of education and awareness strategies that would be applicable to them.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among students from Mumbai University, India during May-June 2017. Two hundred and fifty students were approached to participate in the study of which 213 agreed to participate (males: 107; females: 106). Pretested questionnaire was distributed and collected data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23.Results: Response rate for this study was 85.2% (213/250). Ninety six percent (204/213) of the participants had heard or read about epilepsy. Overall knowledge was poor (40.2%) and attitude was fair (75.3%). None of the participants were aware about recent research regarding hereditary nature of epilepsy. Only 2 (0.98%) students were aware how to perform the first aid in epilepsy. Only 6.8% participants felt that epileptics should participate in sports.Conclusions: The findings of this study show that, even with extensive curriculum covering diseases, drugs and relevant laws of land, the knowledge and attitude scores were low. There is a need to have focused education and campaigns to increase the knowledge and attitude towards epilepsy.

Knowledge, Awareness and Attitude of Pharmacy Students towards Epilepsy in Iraq

“…58% of the participants from the present study believed that epilepsy is a form of mental illness. This percentage is much lower than the study done in Mumbai-India (98%), and higher than that of students in a Malaysian university (39.7%) (16,27) , so our result is confusing since pharmacy students should know that epilepsy is not a mental disease instead, rather it is neurological, for this question we show significant relation between gender (male) and the base answer of the question, where 42.2% of male students said that epilepsy is not a form of mental illness compared with 29.1% of female students of same answer, by comparing with the result of a study from Mumbai university that showed no significant difference between males and females about knowledge about epilepsy (16) .…”

“…About 54.6% of the participants of the present study said epilepsy is hereditary, A study done among pharmacy students from Pakistan reported that 70% of the students know the hereditary nature of epilepsy, while other study done in the university of Mumbai showed that all the participants thought epilepsy is not hereditary (16,17) ,in a study done among public in Jordan, the percentage of people who think epilepsy is an inherited disease was 43.5% (29) . These difference could have originated as there was conflicting evidence regarding hereditary nature of epilepsy, but the recent research improve this where the development in genetic technology has led to the identification of an increasing number of genes associated with epilepsy (30) .…”

“…In the present study, only 139 out of 260 (53.5%) knew how to perform first-aid in epilepsy. A similar study done on pharmacy students from Karachi reported 33% of the participants knowing first aid in epilepsy, while in Mumbai study the percentage was only 0.98% (16,17) , this considered a very good result for Iraqi pharmacy students.…”

“…The undergraduate pharmacy students constitute a well-educated section of the community regarding drugs and have the potential to generate awareness, improve concepts and influence attitudes towards the disease since they have positive attitudes toward health problems (16,17) . In the Middle East, a small number of studies (18,19,20) have scanned the knowledge and attitudes toward epilepsy in general population, but have not done so among pharmacy students, an important group likely to form the opinion in their community and become template for others (21,22) Therefore, it is important that they have the appropriate and updated knowledge and suitable attitude towards epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs (23) , Because the pharmacists play a vital role in the care of patients with epilepsy.…”

“…The survey questionnaire was prepared in English language after reviewing the literature for similar studies (16,17) The questionnaire was framed to gather information on demographic data, knowledge, awareness and attitude towards epilepsy, then it was transferred to electronic form using google forms and then published on the internet in a small group (30 student) in order to check the ease of performing it and if there is any problem about understanding the questions, after that it was published on a large scale and includes undergraduate pharmacy students, the results obtained from the pilot study were excluded from the major study.…”