Introduction: The lack of adequate knowledge poses a barrier in the provision of appropriate treatment and care of patients with epilepsy within the community. The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge of and attitude towards epilepsy and its treatment by community dwellers in Uganda.

Methods: A cross sectional population survey was conducted in urban and rural Mukono district, central Uganda. Adult respondents through multistage stratified sampling were interviewed about selected aspects of epilepsy knowledge, attitudes, and perception using a pretested structured questionnaire.

Results: Ninety-one percent of the study respondents had heard or read about epilepsy or knew someone who had epilepsy and had seen someone having a seizure. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents did not know the cause of epilepsy, while 29% cited genetic causes. About seventeen percent of the subjects believed that epilepsy is contagious. Only 5.6% (21/377) of the respondents would take a patient with epilepsy to hospital for treatment.

Conclusion: Adults in Mukono are very acquainted with epilepsy but have many erroneous beliefs about the condition. Negative attitudes are pervasive within communities in Uganda. The national epilepsy awareness programs need to clarify the purported modes of transmission of epilepsy, available treatment options, and care offered during epileptic seizures during community sensitizations in our settings.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4724516PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2015.10.023DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

epilepsy
12
knowledge attitudes
8
mukono district
8
epilepsy treatment
8
community
4
community knowledge
4
attitudes epilepsy
4
epilepsy rural
4
rural urban
4
urban mukono
4

Similar Publications

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disease that impacts all facets of a patient's life, including their socioeconomic situation. The failure to identify underlying epileptic signatures in their early stages might result in severe harm to the central nervous system (CNS) and permanent adverse changes to some organs. Therefore, numerous antiepileptic drugs (AEDs are frequently used to control and treat the frequency of seizures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Systemic Diseases in Patients with Congenital Aniridia: A Report from the Homburg Registry for Congenital Aniridia.

Ophthalmol Ther

January 2025

Dr. Rolf M. Schwiete Center for Limbal Stem Cell and Congenital Aniridia Research, Saarland University, Homburg, Saar, Germany.

Introduction: Congenital aniridia is increasingly recognized as part of a complex syndrome with numerous ocular developmental anomalies and non-ocular systemic manifestations. This requires comprehensive care and treatment of affected patients. Our purpose was to analyze systemic diseases in patients with congenital aniridia within the Homburg Aniridia Registry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Local structural-functional coupling with counterfactual explanations for epilepsy prediction.

Neuroimage

January 2025

College of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China; Shenzhen Research Institute, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shenzhen, 518038, China; Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence Technology, Ministry of Education, Nanjing, 210016, China. Electronic address:

The structural-functional brain connections coupling (SC-FC coupling) describes the relationship between white matter structural connections and the corresponding functional activation or functional connections. It has been widely used to identify brain disorders. However, the existing research on SC-FC coupling focuses on global and regional scales, and few studies have investigated the impact of brain disorders on this relationship from the perspective of multi-brain region cooperation (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Professional bodies recommend the use of performance validity tests (PVTs) to aid the interpretation of scores obtained in neuropsychological assessments, but base rates of failure differ according to neurological diagnosis and the associated impairments. This review summarises the PVT literature in people with epilepsy with the aim of establishing base rates of PVT failure and the factors associated with PVT performance in this population.

Methods: Ovid and PubMed databases were searched for studies reporting PVT test performance in people with epilepsy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

SEEG seizure onset patterns in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy: A cohort study with 76 patients.

Neurophysiol Clin

January 2025

Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, PR China. Electronic address:

Objectives: In the present study with a large cohort, we aimed to characterize intracerebral seizure onset patterns (SOP) of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE), with or without hippocampal sclerosis (HS) as identified via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 255 seizures of 76 consecutive patients with mTLE explored by stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), including HS-mTLE (n = 52) and non-HS- mTLE (n = 24). Relevant results were obtained by a combination of spectral analysis and manual review.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!