title: Educational video and story as effective interventions reducing epilepsy-related stigma among children.
abstract: Stigma has been related to epilepsy since ancient times. Despite the importance of this issue, only a few interventions focusing on the reduction of epilepsy-related stigma may be found in the literature. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of two interventions focused on the reduction of epilepsy-related stigma in children aged 9-11years. The first group of children involved in the study (n1=89) completed the 23-item Czech version of the SSE (Stigma Scale of Epilepsy) questionnaire and an 11-item multiple-choice knowledge test, then watched a video and completed the same questionnaire and test immediately after the intervention. The same procedure was used for the second group (n2=93) where a story was read by an instructor. Both groups were retested 6months later using the same methods. Both interventions resulted in long-term decrease of epilepsy-related stigma - the average value on SSE decreased from 55.15 points at baseline testing to 43.28 points in the 6-month follow-up for the case of the video (p<0.001) and from 48.68 points to 36.97 points for the case of the story (p<0.001). Knowledge about epilepsy was also significantly improved with the average result in the knowledge test increasing from 6.58 to 9.09 points in case of the video (p<0.001) and from 6.88 to 8.99 points in case of the story (p<0.001). The results showed that both aforementioned interventions were significant and effective ways to reduce epilepsy-related stigma in the given age group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic. Electronic address: dannab@seznam.cz.
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brabcová
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jiří
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kohout
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Veronika
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Weberová
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Neurology, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Motol, Praha, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Vladimír
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Komárek
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior; D018153:Czech Republic / Q000453:epidemiology; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D057545:Social Stigma; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014741:Video Recording / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Children; Epilepsy; Intervention; Knowledge; Stigma; Video