The aim of this study was to explore, using a self-administered questionnaire, university students' knowledge of, perceptions of, and attitudes toward epilepsy. Approximately 1.7% considered epilepsy a contagious disease, and 10.5%, a form of insanity. About 25 and 34% of students thought that epilepsy is caused by an evil spirit and the evil eye, respectively, and 17.4% thought epilepsy is punishment from God. About 8% believed patients with epilepsy should not marry, and 12.5% thought they should not have children. Similarly, 11.7% thought patients with epilepsy cannot think or judge like people without epilepsy, and 26.2% would not employ someone with epilepsy in a clerical job. Approximately 56% objected to marrying someone with epilepsy, and 12.5% would not allow their child to play with a child with epilepsy. In conclusion, university students in Kuwait have a vague knowledge of the causes of epilepsy. Misconceptions about and negative attitudes toward epilepsy are unexpectedly high among these university students.
Source:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
...and more of it:
- In Cameroon it is believed that people with epilepsy are inhabited by the devil. This does not mean that they are seen as evil, but that evil invades them and causes them to convulse from time to time.
- In China, epilepsy diminishes the prospect of marriage, especially for women. A survey of public awareness in 1992 revealed that 72% of parents objected to their children marrying someone with epilepsy.
- In some rural areas of India, attempts are made to exorcise evil spirits from people with epilepsy by tying them to trees, beating them, cutting a portion of hair from their head, squeezing lemon and other juices onto their head and starving them.
- In Indonesia, epilepsy is often considered as a punishment from unknown dark forces.
- In Liberia, as in other African countries, the cause of epilepsy is perceived as related to witchcraft or evil spirits.
- In Nepal, epilepsy is associated with weakness, possession by an evil spirit or the reflection of a red colour. Bystanders who witness a seizure will often spray water on the forehead of the person experiencing the seizure of make him or her smell a leather shoe.
- In the Netherlands in 1996, a person was whipped and put into isolation because her seizures were thought to result from magic.
- In Swaziland, many traditional healers mention sorcery as the cause of epilepsy.
- In Uganda, as in many other countries, epilepsy is thought to be contagious and so people with epilepsy are not allowed to join the communal foodpot for fear of others contracting epilepsy through that person’s saliva.
This is scary and sad especially among people with epilepsy. Luckily, in so called "western civilization" the situation is JUST a little bit better but this "stigma problem" still remains. We are being treating "better" just because of the Law but not far in the past:
- In the United Kingdom, a law forbidding people with epilepsy to marry was repealed only in 1970.
- In the United States of America (USA), many individual States prohibited people with epilepsy from marrying. The last State to repeal this law did so in 1980.
- In the In the United States of America (USA), 18 States provided eugenic sterilisation of people with epilepsy until 1956. Until the 1970s, it was also legal to deny people with seizures access to restaurants, theatres, recreational centres and other public buildings.
Just wondering...is it going to change? It all comes from lack of knowledge or blinding by religious beliefs and neither me, nor you, nor governments can or even worse - want to do something about it. Isn't it time, at last to treat us equally? Think about that.
*NR
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