School Teachers' Knowledge and Attitudes Towards student interaction (original) (raw)

2019, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES REVIEW (IJMSSR)

The attitudes and epilepsy-related knowledge of teachers are an important component of the educational experiences of children with epilepsy. Unfortunately, however, the exploration of teacher attitudes and knowledge has been extremely limited. The knowledge and attitude of school teachers can affect significantly the academic achievement, social development and the quality of life of epileptic students. However, this study is aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude of school teachers towards students with epilepsy. Therefore, this cross-sectional study used a pretested, self-administered, 5-item questionnaire to evaluate the basic knowledge and attitude of Elementary, intermediate, and secondary schools" teachers as regards epilepsy. Schools were chosen at random and included private and public schools for male and female students. Meanwhile, the study included 342 teachers. 98.8% of the respondents heard about the disease, with no significant association with age (p = 0.205) or gender (p = 0.593). The common reported causes for epilepsy included mental disease (62.6%), spiritual possession (11.1%), electric charges in the brain (9.9%) and disturbed nerves (5.3%). 71.3% of respondents were willing to provide first aid during fits and objected to prevent epileptic students from studying (97.7%). Age was significantly associated with knowledge about causes of epilepsy (p = 0.008) and readiness to provide first aid (p = 0.012). Gender was not significantly associated with neither knowledge nor attitude of the respondents. In conclusion, it was found that knowledge of teachers about causes of epilepsy was not adequate. Also, most of them would treat epileptic students differently from their peers. Educational programs should be provided to school teachers to correct wrong beliefs about epilepsy and to train them on first aid measures during epileptic fits, which to focus remedial education and outreach efforts are identified. Available online at https://int-scientific-journals.com