Department of Nursing,College of Medicine,Chosun University,Gwangju,South Korea.
Department of Psychiatry,Seoul National University Hospital,and Seoul Metropolitan Center for Dementia (SMCD),Seoul,South Korea.
Int Psychogeriatr. 2015 Mar;27(3):463-9. doi: 10.1017/S1041610214001896. Epub 2014 Sep 8.
The highest increase in the prevalence of dementia in the elderly population is expected in South Korea than in any other country in the world. However, there is no assessment of the community-based general populations' understanding of dementia in South Korea, in spite of the increasing burden of dementia. Thus, this study assessed the public knowledge about dementia.
This is a population-based, cross-sectional study of 2,189 participants, aged 10 years or older, and living in Seoul, South Korea. A 12-item questionnaire with true/false responses was used to assess the knowledge about dementia from June to November 2011. The data obtained were analyzed using quantitative methods.
The mean score for the knowledge about dementia was 9.0 ± 2.1 points out of 12 points. More than half of the respondents (52.7%) reported that dementia is not treatable, and one-third of the participants did not know that Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. The level of dementia knowledge was negatively associated with increasing age, and positively associated with higher education level.
Our results suggest that although laypersons had a fair knowledge about dementia, further educational programs and campaigns are needed to improve knowledge about dementia, more focusing on elderly adults as the target audience and emphasizing the causes and treatments of dementia as educational contents.
预计韩国老年人口中痴呆症的患病率将是世界上任何其他国家都要高。然而，尽管痴呆症的负担不断增加，却没有对韩国社区内一般人群对痴呆症的了解情况进行评估。因此，本研究评估了公众对痴呆症的认识。
这是一项基于人群的横断面研究，共纳入 2189 名年龄在 10 岁及以上、居住在韩国首尔的参与者。2011 年 6 月至 11 月期间，采用 12 项真/假问题的问卷评估痴呆症的相关知识。使用定量方法分析获得的数据。
痴呆症知识的平均得分为 12 分中的 9.0 ± 2.1 分。超过一半的受访者（52.7%）表示痴呆症无法治疗，三分之一的参与者不知道阿尔茨海默病是痴呆症最常见的病因。痴呆症知识水平与年龄增长呈负相关，与教育程度呈正相关。
尽管非专业人士对痴呆症有一定的了解，但仍需要开展进一步的教育计划和宣传活动，以提高对痴呆症的认识，特别是针对老年人群体，并强调痴呆症的病因和治疗方法作为教育内容。
