The evaluation of the training, “the approach to epilepsy and epileptic seizure,” which was given to teachers in Türkiye

Abstract

IntroductionEpilepsy is the most common neurological disorder among humans after headaches. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 50–65 million individuals were diagnosed with epilepsy throughout the world, and around two million new cases of epilepsy are added to this figure every year.MethodsDesigned as descriptive and cross‐sectional research, this study was performed on 132 elementary school teachers. Training on epilepsy and epileptic seizure was given to teachers. The pretest and posttest research data were collected with the face‐to‐face interview method. In this process, the epilepsy knowledge scale was used as well as a survey form that had questions designed to find out about teachers’ personal characteristics. The Statistical Package for Social Science 25.0 was utilized in the statistical analysis of research data. In the research, the statistical significance was identified if the p‐value was below.05 (p < .05).ResultsOf all teachers participating in the study, 59.1% were female, 90.2% were married, and 47.7% witnessed an epilepsy seizure before. The mean of teachers’ pretest epilepsy knowledge scores was 8.43 ± 4.31 points before the training while the mean of their posttest epilepsy knowledge scores was 12.65 ± 2.48 points after the training. The difference between the means of pretest and posttest scores was statistically significant (p = .000). After the training, there was a statistically significant increase in means of scores obtained by teachers from each item of the epilepsy knowledge scale (p < .05).ConclusionsAs there was a statistically significant improvement in levels of teachers’ knowledge about both epilepsy and epileptic seizure after the training, it is recommended that the training about the approach to epilepsy and epileptic seizure be given to all teachers, and additionally, including these topics in the course curricula of universities is recommended.