KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PERCEPTION OF UNDERGRADUATE OF UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, EDO STATE, NIGERIA TOWARDS EPILEPSY

Background/Aim of study: Epilepsy remains a stigmatized disease due to lack of information and illiteracy has been blamed as the cause of the stigmatization. This stigmatization stems from the fact that the traditional African belief views epilepsy as a spiritual disease. There had been studies to assess the Knowledge, attitude, and perception towards epilepsy. However, there is limited research on the knowledge, attitude and perception of undergraduates of the University of Benin towards epilepsy. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude of Undergraduates of University of Benin towards Epilepsy. Methods: This cross sectional study recruited 398 participants via purposive sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain data from the participants. The data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics. Mann- Whitney and spearman correlation tests was used to assess the variables. The alpha level was at 0.05. Results: The findings revealed 68.9% of the respondents had good knowledge of epilepsy, 250(71.4%) of the respondents had positive attitude towards epilepsy and patients with epilepsy. A positive significant correlation between the knowledge and the attitude (rho=0.310, p=<0.001), a positive significant correlation between the knowledge and the age of the respondents (rho=0.355, p=<0.001*). There was also a positive significant correlation between the knowledge and the level of the respondents (rho=0.896 p=<0.001*). Conclusion: The good knowledge of epilepsy demonstrated by the respondents has translated to a positive attitude towards patients with epilepsy. The finding may have reported good knowledge and positive attitudes among the respondents, however, there is still an obvious need for an improvement in knowledge and attitude among the respondents. Further studies are misconception