Ali Hossam Tharwat, Al-Shafey Nada Ashraf, Elesway Mustafa Faris, Abouda Dalia Atef, Shehata Abdalrahman Salah, Khalaf Mohamed Mahmoud, El-Farargy Sara Hosny, Abdelaziz Esraa Reda, Abdelmonhiem Ahmed Mohamed
Qena Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, 83621, Egypt.
Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Neurol Sci. 2025 Aug 2. doi: 10.1007/s10072-025-08384-4.
Neurophobia is the fear of neurosciences and clinical neurology, which is probably due to the students' inability to apply their knowledge of basic sciences to clinical situations. While the burden of neurological diseases increases, it is important to combat the phenomenon of neurophobia. This is the first multicenter cross-sectional online study of Egyptian students exploring their attitudes towards neurology and neuroscience, carried out in September and October 2024. A total of 434 medical students who had studied clinical neurology participated in the present study. Likert-scale questions (1-5) were utilized, and data analysis was performed using R Statistical Software (version 4.3.2; R Core Team, 2023). Out of the 434 participants, 240 (55%) were males, and the median age of participants (IQR) was 22 (22, 23) years. We found a neurophobia prevalence of 35.7%; nevertheless, when calculating the same phobia score for other specialties, we found that neurology ranked second only to cardiology with a prevalence of 36.6%. In terms of interest, the mean score (SD) for neurology was 3.41 (1.26), ranked second to endocrinology at 3.47 (1.20) and followed by cardiology at 3.34 (1.29) with a p-value of (0.4737, 0.4247) respectively. The main reasons for neurophobia were trouble with neuroanatomy (49.5%), trouble with basic neuroscience (28.6%), lack of curative treatments or poor prognosis (28.1%), and poor teaching (17.1%). Students perceived working as a neurologist to be more challenging than other specialties, with a score of 3.60 (0.88) out of a 1-5 scale. The current study provided suggestions to combat neurophobia.
神经恐惧症是对神经科学和临床神经病学的恐惧，这可能是由于学生无法将基础科学知识应用于临床情况。随着神经系统疾病负担的增加，对抗神经恐惧症现象很重要。这是2024年9月和10月对埃及学生进行的首次多中心横断面在线研究，探讨他们对神经病学和神经科学的态度。共有434名学习过临床神经病学的医学生参与了本研究。使用了李克特量表问题（1 - 5），并使用R统计软件（版本4.3.2；R核心团队，2023）进行数据分析。在434名参与者中，240名（55%）为男性，参与者的年龄中位数（四分位距）为22（22，23）岁。我们发现神经恐惧症的患病率为35.7%；然而，在计算其他专业的相同恐惧得分时，我们发现神经病学的患病率仅次于心脏病学，为36.6%。在兴趣方面，神经病学的平均得分（标准差）为3.41（1.26），仅次于内分泌学的3.47（1.20），心脏病学的3.34（1.29），p值分别为（0.4737，0.4247）。神经恐惧症的主要原因是神经解剖学困难（49.5%）、基础神经科学困难（28.6%）、缺乏治愈性治疗或预后不良（28.1%）以及教学质量差（17.1%）。学生们认为从事神经科医生的工作比其他专业更具挑战性，在1 - 5分的量表上得分为3.60（0.88）。本研究提出了对抗神经恐惧症 的建议。
