Epilepsy education for future nurses: On knowledge, attitude and first aid approaches

Abstract

Background & Objective: Nursing students will play an important role in providing care to epilepsy patients in the future. Epilepsy education is an important tool in improving knowledge, attitude and seizure first aid approaches. The purpose of this research was to assess the efficacy of the epilepsy training program.

Method: This one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted with 95 students studying at the Nursing Department of the Faculty of Health Sciences in Turkey between November 2022 and February 2023. The data of the study were collected with the first aid management form, The Epilepsy Knowledge Scale and The Epilepsy Attitude Scale. In this study, which included pretest and posttests, a three-session face-to-face epilepsy education programme based on epilepsy was applied.

Results: In this research, it was shown that the results before and after education were statistically significantly different (p<0.05). The epilepsy knowledge scale score increased from 8.33±3.56 to 13.27±2.19, and the epilepsy attitude scale score increased from 59.70±7.67 to 62.96±6.02 after the training. The attitudes and knowledge of students about epilepsy were significantly correlated positively (r=0.399, p<0.05 before education, r=0.403, p<0.05 after education). The number of students who felt capable of seizure intervention increased significantly after the education (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The research revealed the beneficial effects of epilepsy education intervention applied to nursing students. In the future, awareness should continue to be promoted through epilepsy education programs, and accessibility to such programs should be increased.