Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Ospedale Civile di Macerata, Italy.
Child Neurology Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Presidio Ospedaliero Santa Maria Nuova, AUSL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Epilepsy Behav. 2023 Aug;145:109328. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2023.109328. Epub 2023 Jul 11.
The Young Epilepsy Section-Italian chapter (YES-I) is the Italian section of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE)-YES. It was founded in 2019 with the aim of increasing the involvement of young epileptologists within scientific associations and facilitating their educational training. The Education and Career Task Force designed a survey on the impact of gender inequality on the educational and professional growth of young epileptologists.
The survey was proposed via QR code during the 43rd National Congress of the Italian League Against Epilepsy (Padua, 8-10 June 2022), and subsequently distributed via email until 7th September 2022.
Of the respondents, 73.6% were female. Of note, 51% of the entire sample answered that they found "no impact" of gender on educational activities (64.3% male against 46.1% female). Only 10% of women stated they have seen very much gender-related inequality in their education or career. However, the majority of our cohort (66%) thought that gender had a negative impact on progression within a scientific society, as well as in female leadership roles in clinical practice (67.9%). Furthermore female medical staff received little work recognition (56.6%). Lastly, 83% of responders did not have children, and only 37.7% declared their colleagues to be empathic in relation to absences for family emergencies.
Lack of awareness of the gender inequality issue might explain inconsistencies in the findings of our survey. Despite the remarkable progress of women rights over the last century, our survey suggests that disparities in academic and decision-making roles exist also in the epileptology field.
意大利青年癫痫科分会（YES-I）是国际抗癫痫联盟（ILAE）青年癫痫科分会（YES）的意大利分部。该分会成立于 2019 年，旨在增加青年癫痫学家在科学协会中的参与度，为他们提供教育培训。教育与职业工作组设计了一项调查，旨在了解性别不平等对青年癫痫学家教育和职业发展的影响。
该调查通过二维码在第 43 届意大利癫痫协会全国代表大会（帕多瓦，2022 年 6 月 8 日至 10 日）期间提出，并随后通过电子邮件分发，直至 2022 年 9 月 7 日。
应答者中 73.6%为女性。值得注意的是，整个样本中有 51%的人回答说他们发现性别对教育活动没有影响（男性占 64.3%，女性占 46.1%）。只有 10%的女性表示在教育或职业中看到了很多与性别有关的不平等。然而，我们的大多数人（66%）认为性别对在科学协会中的晋升以及在临床实践中的女性领导角色有负面影响（67.9%）。此外，女性医务人员很少得到工作认可（56.6%）。最后，83%的应答者没有孩子，只有 37.7%的人表示他们的同事在因家庭紧急情况缺勤时表示同情。
对性别不平等问题缺乏认识可能解释了我们调查结果的不一致。尽管在上个世纪女性权利取得了显著进展，但我们的调查表明，学术和决策角色的差距也存在于癫痫学领域。
