Knowledge, attitude, and awareness of community members regarding epilepsy in selected villages of Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces, South Africa

Abstract

In rural communities of most African countries, there are different beliefs with regards to the causes of Epilepsy disease or condition. It is believed that Epilepsy is caused by witchcraft or other forms of demon possessions, together with many other misconceptions. Many community members have different perspectives regarding Epilepsy condition with the detrimental result that epileptic patients feel stigmatised and discriminated. The study was done to assess knowledge, attitudes and awareness of community members regarding Epilepsy in selected villages of Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces, South Africa. A quantitative, descriptive design was used. A nonprobability purposive sampling was used to select the study site and selected villages. The population comprised of all community members residing in the selected villages of Limpopo and Mpumalanga province. A multistage sampling was conducted to sample villages and respondents and sample size was calculated using Raosoft. During data collection, the respondents were selected purposively and 4290 participants participated in the study. After data collection, the data was analysed using SPSS Version 26.0. Cross-tabulations was used to determine the socio-demographic characteristic, knowledge, attitudes and awareness levels of community members in each province. Ethical considerations were adhered to. Results revealed an insufficient level of knowledge and poor attitude towards Epilepsy in both provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Awareness ,Knowledge and attitude are reciprocal. If one is not knowledgeable ,the attitude is also negative. Regarding awareness the participants were not aware of Epilepsy as almost half of the participants in the Limpopo province have never heard or read about Epilepsy. Awareness campaigns and educational programs should be implemented to help alleviate the discriminations, stigma and misconceptions caused by lack of knowledge as this will also help in bettering the attitudes of community members.