Abstracts

Rationale: We investigated Korean teachers’ perception of epilepsy-related stigma as well as the influencing factors of such perception to establish measures for reducing prejudice toward epilepsy.

Methods: We conducted a nationwide survey with middle and high school teachers selected from among the general population in Korea. The participants completed a 37-item questionnaire structured to quantify familiarity, knowledge, and perception of epilepsy-related stigma. The questionnaire was filled out either online or offline.

Results: Of participants 1,221, 904 (74.0%) were females. The mean age was 42.37 years ± 10.75 (range 23–67 years). Participants tended to be more fearful of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy, and epilepsy than asthma and diabetes. Overall, 79.2% had either heard or read about epilepsy. 11.0% had attended lectures on epilepsy. 32.7% knew people with epilepsy (PWE). Most participants (93.1%) responded that PWE can perform well academically, attend school regularly (81.2%), and work regularly (78.2%). Conversely, relatively few participants opined that PWE had no problem driving cars (37.6%). Compared to our survey of adolescents in general papulation from the same period, the current study demonstrated higher familiarity, knowledge and lower perception of stigma toward epilepsy. However, 64.2% would tell their friends about having epilepsy, while those who would want to be told that their friend had epilepsy constituted 84.8%. In a similar context, 82.6% of the participants reported their ability to relate well with a friend with epilepsy, whereas only 33.5% of them (28.8% in total) reported that they would date a PWE. The stigma perception scores were negatively associated with the epilepsy knowledge scores (p < 0.001).