Knowledge, attitudes and practice towards epilepsy among medical staff in Southern China: Does the level of hospitals make a difference?

People with epilepsy and their families suffer from severe stigma and discrimination in China, mostly because of traditional and superstitious views [1–3]. Such cultural misconceptions are considered to be a greater handicap to people with epilepsy than disability from repetitive seizures or antiepileptic drug side effects [4,5], contributing to tremendous psychological, economic, and social burdens [6–8]. Worse more, such stigmatizing attitudes are not just prevalent among the general population, but also exist in health-care personnel even though they have received medical education or training and are supposed to be relatively objective toward epilepsy [9–12].

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