Njamnshi Alfred K, Yepnjio Faustin N, Tabah Earnest N, Dema Fidèle, Angwafor Samuel A, Fonsah Julius Y, Angwafo Fru F, Muna Walinjom F T
Department of Internal Medicine and Specialties, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon.
Epilepsy Behav. 2009 Apr;14(4):628-33. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2009.01.021. Epub 2009 Feb 4.
Within the framework of a series of studies mandated by the Ministry of Public Health of Cameroon to obtain baseline data for an epilepsy education program adapted to our communities, we interviewed 456 subjects without epilepsy in the Ebolowa Regional and Sangmelima District Hospitals. We found that 99.6 and 72.6% had heard or knew a person or people with epilepsy (PWE) and 76.8% had seen a seizure. About 58% of respondents would offer equal employment opportunities to PWE; 39.6% and 33.6% would respectively object to their children associating with or marrying PWE; 13% associated epilepsy with insanity and witchcraft, whereas 82.5% would recommend modern treatment for epilepsy. Predictors of negative attitudes were the beliefs that epilepsy is hereditary (26.3%) and epilepsy is a form of insanity (13%). Familiarity with epilepsy in Ebolowa and Sangmelima is high, and attitudes toward PWE are better there than in other areas of Cameroon. These results demonstrate a regional variation in public awareness and attitudes toward epilepsy and suggest that urban populations may constitute targets as well as channels for epilepsy sensitization campaigns in Cameroon.
在喀麦隆公共卫生部委托开展的一系列研究框架内，为获取适合我们社区的癫痫教育项目的基线数据，我们在埃博洛瓦地区医院和桑格梅利马区医院采访了456名无癫痫病史的受试者。我们发现，99.6%和72.6%的人听说过或认识癫痫患者，76.8%的人见过癫痫发作。约58%的受访者会为癫痫患者提供平等的就业机会；39.6%和33.6%的人会分别反对自己的孩子与癫痫患者交往或结婚；13%的人将癫痫与精神错乱和巫术联系在一起，而82.5%的人会推荐癫痫的现代治疗方法。负面态度的预测因素是认为癫痫具有遗传性（26.3%）以及癫痫是一种精神错乱形式（13%）。埃博洛瓦和桑格梅利马对癫痫的知晓率很高，且当地对癫痫患者的态度比喀麦隆其他地区更好。这些结果表明公众对癫痫的认识和态度存在地区差异，并表明城市人口可能既是喀麦隆癫痫宣传活动的目标群体，也是宣传渠道。
