Effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge and attitude regarding epilepsy among undergraduate students

Epilepsy is a brain disease where nerve cells don’t signal properly causes seizures, occurs at any age but highest risk in infants and old age groups. Epilepsy is affecting over 70 million people worldwide. In developing world, the prevalence of epilepsy is 5-10 per 1000. In India, the prevalence ranges from 3 to 11.9 per 1000 population. The present study was undertaken to assess the knowledge regarding epilepsy among undergraduate students by using a structured knowledge questionnaire, to determine the attitude regarding epilepsy among undergraduate students using Likert attitude scale and to identify the association between pretest knowledge and attitude with selected dempgraphic variables. Quantitative approach is used and the research design in the present study was pre-experimental pretest-posttest design. The participants in the study was undergraduate students in a selected college at Pathanamthitta district. Purposive sampling technique is used to collect the participants and total of 40 subjects were selected. Investigator identified that in pre- test all (100%) students had poor knowledge. In post- test 26(65%) students had good knowledge, 14(35%) students had average knowledge. The investigator identified that in pre- test only 1(2.5%) student had negative attitude, 33(82.5%) students had neutral attitude, 6 (15%) had positive attitude regarding epilepsy and in post- test 39 students (97.5%) had positive attitude and only one had neutral attitude. There was improvement in knowledge and attitude after intervention.