Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt.
Department of Social Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 4;16(2):e0245673. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245673. eCollection 2021.
Stuttering is a multifactorial speech disorder with significant social and psychological consequences. There is a lack of knowledge about public attitudes towards people who stutter (PWS) and the factors that can determine such attitudes in underprivileged communities. This study aimed to assess the public attitudes in South Egypt towards PWS and compare our results with those stored in a reference database representing 180 different samples.
A multi-stage random sampling approach was used to recruit 650 people from Beni-Suef City in South Egypt. All participants were interviewed using the Arabic version of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes-Stuttering (POSHA-S) after getting their informed consent. This instrument assesses people's Beliefs and Self Reactions towards PWS in addition to their sociodemographic characteristics.
The Beliefs and Self Reactions subscores in addition to the Overall Stuttering Score of the Egyptian sample were remarkably lower than the median values of the reference database (12 versus 34), (-4 versus 2), and (4 versus 18), respectively. TV, radio, and films were the main sources of knowledge about stuttering. Egyptian participants who reported average to high income were more likely to have a positive attitude (≥50% of Overall Stuttering Score) towards PWS than their counterparts with low income (Odds Ratio = 1.57, 95% Confidence Interval: 1.08-2.28).
People in South Egypt showed a less positive attitude towards PWS compared with other populations worldwide. Further studies should focus on changing the public attitudes towards PWS through awareness programs that consider the cultural perspectives of the society.
口吃是一种多因素的言语障碍，会对患者造成严重的社会和心理影响。目前，我们对口吃患者（PWS）在贫困社区中的公众态度以及决定这些态度的因素知之甚少。本研究旨在评估埃及南部地区公众对口吃患者的态度，并将我们的研究结果与代表 180 个不同样本的参考数据库中的结果进行比较。
采用多阶段随机抽样方法，从埃及南部贝尼苏韦夫市招募了 650 名参与者。所有参与者在知情同意后，均使用阿拉伯语版的公众对口吃患者态度问卷调查（POSHA-S）接受访谈。该工具评估了人们对口吃患者的信念和自我反应，以及他们的社会人口统计学特征。
埃及样本的信念和自我反应子评分以及总体口吃评分均显著低于参考数据库的中位数（12 对 34）、（-4 对 2）和（4 对 18）。电视、广播和电影是人们对口吃了解的主要来源。报告收入中等或较高的埃及参与者对口吃患者的态度（≥整体口吃评分的 50%）比收入较低的参与者更积极（优势比=1.57，95%置信区间：1.08-2.28）。
与世界其他地区相比，埃及南部地区的公众对口吃患者的态度不太积极。进一步的研究应通过关注社会文化视角的意识项目，致力于改变公众对口吃患者的态度。
