Knowledge, attitude and practices of schoolteachers toward epilepsy and students with epilepsy

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to estimate and evaluate teachers' knowledge, atti-tudes, and practices toward students with epi-lepsy and to determine the association between selected demographic factors. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This cross-sec-tional study was approved by the ethical com-mittee of King Saud University, Riyadh, Sau-di Arabia. The study was conducted at the de-partment of physiology, King Saud Universi-ty, from October 2020 until October 2021. The data was collected through anonymous online self-administered 44-item questionnaires. The sampling technique used was Snowball sam-pling from ten randomly selected schools in Riyadh. RESULTS: The total sample size was 456 par-ticipants. The mean age of the respondents was 41.5 +/- 8.52, and a male to female ratio of 1.4:1. The mean years of experience of the re-spondents is 16.14 +/- 8.85. Almost all teach-ers knew that epilepsy is a neurological disor-der (97.8%). However, females were more like-ly to know the cause of epilepsy (p=0.003). The majority of public-school teachers (80.2%) thought that epileptic students have normal in-telligence (p=0.004). A considerable proportion of public-school teachers (82.8%) do not mind having a student with epilepsy in their classes (p=0.012). The vast majority of schoolteachers (95.4%) have not had any training on how to deal with an epileptic student during a seizure. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that schoolteachers have very good knowledge about epilepsy but poor practice towards it. Well-directed training programs are needed to qualify teachers in providing first aid to epilep-tic students during seizures.