Author(s): Ismat Babiker, Mohamed K. Elnaeim, Awab K. Elnaeem
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the Sudanese community’s awareness about necessity of presentation of different seizure types.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive internet-based survey that was distributed to Sudanese participants via Google forms from January to April 2018. The survey consisted of demographic data (age, gender, educational level), a statement evaluating participants’ sources of obtaining epilepsy-related knowledge, a statement assessing awareness about the appropriate primary care provider for People with Epilepsy (PWE), and a statement describing the symptomatology of different seizure types in simple Arabic, asking what description(s) participants thought should present to health care providers. We included participants residing in Sudan, and those with university or higher education. Four hundred sixty-seven participants completed the survey.
Results: 467 participants were included, of whom, 279 (60%) were females. The mean age of participants was 28 years. Two-thirds of participants obtained their information from non-scientific sources. 84% of the participants were aware that doctors are the primary health care providers for people with epilepsy. The majority (92%) of participants were aware that patients with symptoms corresponding to the generalized tonic-clonic seizure description should present to doctors, compared with two-thirds of participants for the description of focal seizure with retained awareness, and only 30.6% of participants for absence seizure symptom description.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated poor awareness about the necessity of presentation for absence and focal seizures with retained awareness. We hypothesize that this lack of awareness may contribute to epilepsy treatment gap, and we recommend further studies to examine this hypothesis.
