Epilepsy: Knowledge and Attitudes of Primary School Teachers in the City of Bouake/ivory Coast - Epilepsy: Knowledge and Attitudes of Primary School Teachers in the City of Bouake/ivory Coast - Open Access Pub

We report the results of a two-month descriptive observational survey to assess the knowledge about epilepsy among primary school teachers in Bouake in Ivory Coast. This study included 310 teachers who were randomly chosen from three Primary School Inspections (PSI). Almost all the teachers who were included had shown inaccurate information about epilepsy. 46.45% of the respondents thought that epilepsy was contagious and 47.74% recommanded to avoid contacting with salivary secretions of the patient during seizure. For 16.45% of them, persons living with epilepsy (PWE) could be not married and 19.7% believed that PWE could not have children due to the risk of transmission. This study highlights the urgent need of awareness campaigns among primary school teachers. DOI10.14302/issn.2470-5020.jnrt-18-2032 Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder with multiple and often curable causes 1. Epilepsy affects approximately 50 million people worldwide making it the most common neurological disorder globally 2. Most people living with epilepsy (PWE) live in low and middle income countries 3. The prevalence of epilepsy in Africa is greater than 10‰ 4. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the prevalence of active convulsive epilepsy is high and range from 2.2 to 58 per 1000 affecting and estimared 4.4 million people 5. In Ivory Coast, the prevalence of epilepsy has been estimated at 7‰ by Kouassi and al. 6. The PWE are still too often stigmatized because of the lack of knowledge about this disease and supernatural beliefs in the population 7. In Ivory Coast, several studies have demonstrated focused on the sociocultural aspects of the epilepsy in different population groups. Assi and al. carried out a study in a population of students in Abidjan 8. Boa and al. assessed the knowledges and beliefs on epilepsy in next of kin of PWE hospitalised in neurology 9. Akani and al. conduced a study on the knowledges of medical traditional health practitionners on epilepsy 10. Increased attention is currently scope to the quality of life, that is to say to the psychological and social problems faced by PWE, including access to education. Doumbia and al. have found 35.2‰ epilepsy in the preparatory course (C.P.1) students in their study carried out in one commune of abidjan in Ivory Coast 11. Schools should offer some useful information and assistance in health issues, such as epilepsy. Therefore, teachers should have sufficient knowledge for this purpose. Our study aims at assessing the level of knowledge of primary school teacher in the city of Bouake in Ivory Coast. That was a