Seeking Traditional Healers in the Management of Epilepsy

Abstract Background/Aims The best of the available literature, data about seeking traditional healers by patients with epilepsy are lacking in Egypt. Methods The current study was conducted on Epilepsy patients from Egypt to determine the prevalence of traditional healers among individuals with epilepsy during the period from June-2022 to may-2023. Sixty four patients, male or female ≥18 years old, with epilepsy, were included. All patients were subjected to the assessment Questionnaire for knowledge, attitude to and perception of epilepsy, and seeking traditional healers (THs) using an interviewer. The questionnaire was in Arabic. Results The study included 64 Epilepsy patients. Seeking TH is Egypt 22/64 (34.4%); however, Seeking THs is affected by gender, location, employment status, educational level; but not by age, duration of disease, presence of similar cases in the family or by being an offspring of consanguineous marriage. The percentage of cases who believe the reason behind the symptoms is envy/ Eye /super powers/ Evil spirits/magi in the overall sample is higher in the THs seekers (52.3%) than in the non-seekers (10.3%), p < 0.001. in Egypt it is (54.5%) versus (14.3%), p = 0.001. Conclusions The current study showed that seeking traditional healers is still prevalent. Our work showed that seeking traditional healers is more in rural areas, unemployment, females, low educational levels, lack of facilities with specialization in neurology in rural areas.