scholarly journals Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices on Epilepsy among High School Students of Central Nepal

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lekhjung Thapa ◽  
Tirtha Raj Bhandari ◽  
Shakti Shrestha ◽  
Ramesh Sharma Poudel

Introduction. Epilepsy continues to increase worldwide but, unfortunately, many high school students have inadequate knowledge of and negative beliefs towards the disease. We aimed to assess the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of epilepsy among high school students of Central Nepal. Materials and Methods. A cross-sectional study was performed involving 1360 high school students from 33 private schools across Bharatpur, from June 2013 to July 2013, to assess their knowledge, beliefs, and practices (KBP) on epilepsy using a standardized questionnaire. The differences in mean KBP scores between different sexes, religions, and those personally knowing versus not knowing someone with epilepsy were assessed using independent t-tests; a Pearson correlation was calculated to assess the relationship between KBP scores and age. Results. Of 1360 participants, 79 (5.8%) students had never heard or read about epilepsy and were consequently excluded from statistical analysis. Only 261 out of 1360 (19.2%) had personally known someone with epilepsy. The mean KBP scores were 5.0/8, 7.4/12, and 1.7/3, respectively. Statistically significant differences were only observed in the knowledge component of the KBP score; female scored higher than males (p<0.001) and, interestingly, students who had personally known a person with epilepsy actually knew less than those who had not known one (p=0.018). We also found a significant negative correlation between knowledge and age (p=0.003). Conclusions. The overall knowledge, beliefs, and practices appear to be inadequate, emphasizing the need for further educational intervention.

Author(s):  
Ameneh Marzban ◽  
Abozar Ansari ◽  
Seyed Yahya Rafiee ◽  
Ali Asghar Ebrahimi ◽  
Maryam Dolatabadi ◽  
...  

Introduction: Nowadays, water has turned into one of the biggest challenges of the current century, which can be the origin of numerous positive and negative changes across the world. Iran is one of the driest countries with a quarter of the average annual precipitation on a global scale. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between religious attitudes and tendency towards conserving water in high school students in Zarrin Dasht city, Iran. Materials and Methods:  This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017. To this end, 800 individuals (400 females and 400 males) were selected using random sampling method by taking into account the proportion of students in each school. To collect the data, two questionnaires of the water conservation tendency inventory containing 12 items and religious attitude questionnaire with 60 items were employed. Then, data analysis was performed using SPSS (version 24) and by running the Chi-square test, Pearson correlation coefficient, as well as descriptive statistics (P = 0.05). Results: The mean scores of religious attitudes and tendency towards conserving water among the participants were equal to 36.18 and 175.83, respectively. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between the students’ religious attitudes, their demographic variables of age and gender, tendency to conserve water, and number of family members (p ˂ 0.05). Moreover, the correlation between religious attitudes and tendency towards saving water was also statistically significant (p ˂ 0.05, r = 0.81). Conclusion: Considering religious attitudes and tendency towards conserving water, religious and moral inputs should be reinforced related to water-saving in students. This can extend their attitudes towards optimal water consumption within the society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Sarita Tuladhar ◽  
Jamuna Gurung

Introduction: Conjunctivitis is a common health problem in Nepal. It is inflammation of conjunctiva presenting as red eye. It is a communicable eye disease. Health education to the students and proper management can help spread of the disease. Knowledge of conjunctivitis among school students will help in prevention of the disease. So the study was carried out to assess the knowledge of conjunctivitis among high school students in Pokhara valley of Western Nepal. Materials/ Methods: A school based cross sectional study was performed among six government schools in western Nepal from May 2019 to June 2019. Students from grade eight, nine and ten were included in the study. Data was collected using structured questionnaire including demographic data, knowledge regarding sign symptoms of conjunctivitis, treatment, prevention, complication of conjunctivitis. Data was analysed using SPSS version 11.6. Result: A total of 523 students were included in the study. The mean age of the students was 14.7 ± 1.2 years with majority of females (53%). Nearly 2/3rd of the students (61.6%) had heard of conjunctivitis. Majority of the students (87.4%) of the students mentioned that it is communicable while 80.3% of the students correctly mentioned its etiology. Majority of the students (97.9%) mentioned that it is curable with treatment as first option (97.5%). Majority of the students (98.3%) correctly responded to the preventive measures but majority of the students (83.2%) wrongly mentioned mode of transmission. Conclusion: Secondary school students in Western Nepal have poor knowledge of conjunctivitis. Appropriate eye health education should be given to school students to prevent rapid spread of infective conjunctivitis.  


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