Knowledge, Awareness and Attitude of Pharmacy Students towards Epilepsy in Iraq

Abstract

Background: The undergraduate students in pharmacy colleges represent a well-educated group of the
community according to the use of drugs and they are required to hold the appropriate knowledge of drug
use and have positive attitudes toward health problems, this good knowledge about the diseases and their
treatment will give good pharmacists in the future and this will reflect positively on patient knowledge, and
their compliance with treatment, this due to direct contact of pharmacists with the patients.
Aim: To know the knowledge, Awareness and Attitude of a sample of Iraqi pharmacy students towards
epilepsy.
Method: Cross-sectional study used a structured questionnaire validated by previous studies to collect
data about knowledge, Awareness and Attitude about epilepsy from all stages of undergraduate pharmacy
students, this survey involves 260 respondents from different universities in Iraq.
Results: The questionnaire was responded by 260 students. The main part of the respondents were of age
group between 21-25 years (84.2%). The majority of the respondents were female (67.3%), and (32.7%)
were male. Overall knowledge was moderate (60.1±17.8), awareness was poor (42.6±33.5) but the attitude
toward epilepsy was very good (83.3±13.1).
Conclusions: The results of this study showed that, majority of the students had knowledge of the disease
however, the knowledge score was moderate. While Awareness score was low, we need to have focused
education and efforts to increase the knowledge and awareness towards epilepsy among pharmacy students.
At the same time the attitudes of pharmacy students toward epilepsy in this study was very good.