title: Developing two different measures for assessing knowledge of and attitudes toward epilepsy for the Turkish population.
abstract: The aim of this study was to develop two new scales for assessing Turkish public's knowledge of epilepsy and attitudes toward it. A 26-item knowledge scale and a 15-item attitude scale were first developed and then tested using a random selection of adults aged 18 n = 613) from different parts of Istanbul. After item and factor analyses of the knowledge scale, 10 items were omitted. Varimax rotation resulted in three underlying components that explained 35.7% of the variance. As a reliability assessment, the Kuder-Richardson-20 coefficient was 0.72. For the attitude scale one item was excluded after factor analyses. Varimax rotation revealed two underlying components that explained 46.31% of the variance. Cronbach's alpha was found to be 0.84. Additionally, it was found that subjects with more knowledge of epilepsy had more positive attitudes toward epilepsy (r = .36, P<0.01).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey. aydemirn@istanbul.edu.tr
authors.forename: Nuran
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Aydemir
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology; D014894:Weights and Measures