Epilepsy Journal

Knowledge, Practice and Attitude towards Epilepsy and Associated Factors among Adults in Goncha Siso Enesie Woreda Rural Kebeles, East Gojjam, Ethiopia 2016

Abstract

Haymanot Zeleke, Tenaw Gualu, Yewbmirt Sharew and Girma Alem

Back ground: Epilepsy is one of common neurological disorder in developing countries. Epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide, and 80% of them live in the developing world. Epilepsy is one of stigmatizing problem with social, physical, economical and psychological effects on the patient as well as on the family. Objective: To assess Knowledge, Practice and Attitude about Epilepsy and associated factors among Adults in Goncha Siso EnesieWoreda Rural Kebeles, East Gojjam, Ethiopia, 2016. Method: Community based cross-sectional study design was used. The study was conducted from 2 September 2016 to 24 October 2016. In this study, sample size was 634 households from randomly selected kebele. To assess the relationship of factors and with the dependent variables multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. Result: A total of 600 respondents were interviewed. This made the response rate to be 94.6%. One hundred percent of participants replied as they heard about Epilepsy from different sources previously. Even though they have awareness, about 285(47.5%) have inadequate knowledge, 379(63.2%) poor Practice, 206(34.3%) have unfavorable attitude towards epilepsy. Participants who have educational status of college and above are 3.5 times have favorable attitude than participants who could not read and write. Conclusion: The main finding of this study indicates medium adequate knowledge, high poor Practice and high favorable attitude about epilepsy. The findings indicate, they were familiar with epilepsy, yet there is still problem with practice. Determinate variables for knowledge are educational level, residency and walking time between home and health institution and for practice educational status and family role are significant. Educational status also affects attitude of participants. All stalk holders of Goncha Siso Enesie Woreda and all health institutions shall work integrated on creation of awareness on interventions which are important when they encounter epileptic patient.