Evaluation of the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes toward epilepsy among general practitioners in Eastern China

We aimed to assess the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes toward epilepsy among general practitioners (GPs) from community health service centers (CHCs) in Hangzhou, Eastern China.

One hundred twenty three GPs working at CHCs participated in this cross-sectional study in 2022. A custom-built electronic questionnaire, which comprised four domains, including 12 items for general condition data, 10 items for awareness (including first aid), a 16-item scale for attitudes, and 6 items for demographic data, was administered to the GPs. Descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Spearman's rank correlation analysis were used to analyze the non-normal distribution of the data set.

The GPs' average score on the awareness of epilepsy section was 18.14 ± 3.34 (aggregate score: 34), the first aid knowledge of epilepsy section scored 4.89 ± 1.54 (aggregate score: 7), and the epilepsy attitude section scored 62.28 ± 10.15 (aggregate score: 80). Age (r_s = 0.218, P = 0.015), professional title (r_s = 0.215, P = 0.017), and length of service (r_s = 0.240, P = 0.008) correlated significantly with mean awareness of epilepsy scores. Age (r_s = -0.234, P = 0.009) and educational background (r_s = 0.199, P = 0.028) correlated significantly with attitudes toward epilepsy. Furthermore, when GPs faced newly diagnosed people with epilepsy (PWE), a referral was usually recommended (89.43%) and some would give Chinese traditional treatment (13.01%). In addition, the difficulties the GPs encountered in managing included PWE rarely appearing in the community (82.93%), the community lacking corresponding medical equipment (82.11%), and GPs lacking epilepsy-related experience (73.17%).

The awareness and attitudes of GPs toward epilepsy in the CHCs were suboptimal. General practitioners age, professional title, length of service, and educational background influenced awareness and attitudes toward PWE. Effective public intervention programs, epilepsy training based on National Guidelines, and referral routes need to improve in China to enhance the care of PWE.