Świadomość, postawy wobec epilepsji i wiedza o pierwszej pomocy przy napadach wśród lekarzy opieki podstawowej na wsiach we Wschodniej Chinach

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the awareness of, and attitudes toward epilepsy among young rural primary care doctors from rural clinics in Zhejiang Province, Eastern China. METHODS: Ninety-five young rural primary care doctors working at rural clinics participated in this cross-sectional study in 2025. A custom-built electronic questionnaire, which comprised four sections, including 12 items for general condition data, 10 items for awareness (including first aid), a 16-item scale for attitudes, and 6 items for demographic data, was administered to the rural primary care doctors. Descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Spearman's rank correlation analysis were used to analyze the data, which exhibited a non-normal distribution. Multivariable linear regression analyzes were conducted to identify independent predictors for each outcome, using the enter method and reporting β, B with 95% CI, p-values, and R. RESULTS: The young rural primary care doctors obtained a mean score of 18.20 ± 3.48 (aggregate score: 30) on the awareness of epilepsy section, a mean score of 5.40 ± 1.53 (aggregate score: 7) on the first aid knowledge section, and a mean score of 66.05 ± 7.65 (aggregate score: 80) on the epilepsy attitude section. Educational background (r = 0.293, p = 0.004), training experience (r = 0.322, p = 0.001), and epilepsy attitude scores (r = 0.255, p = 0.013) correlated significantly with mean epilepsy awareness scores. Training experience (r = 0.222, p = 0.031) correlated significantly with attitudes toward epilepsy. Multivariable regression analyzes showed that educational background independently predicted epilepsy awareness (p = 0.016) and first aid knowledge (p < 0.001), while training experience did not (p = 0.492 and p = 0.687, respectively). Epilepsy awareness independently predicted attitudes toward people with epilepsy (PWE) (p = 0.004) and first aid knowledge (p < 0.001). Furthermore, when rural primary care doctors faced newly diagnosed PWE, a referral was usually recommended (95.79%), and a few would initiate antiseizure medications (ASMs) (22.58%). In addition, about 30%-40% of the rural primary care doctors maintained an uncertain attitude toward the marriage, dating and pregnancy. CONCLUSION: The awareness and attitudes of young rural primary care doctors toward epilepsy in the rural clinics were suboptimal. We recommend targeted training for young rural primary care doctors (covering first aid, novel ASMs, and patient counseling for marriage, dating, and pregnancy), combined with telemedicine integration to establish specialist support networks and optimize rural epilepsy care pathways.