INFLUENCE OF ILLNESS PERCEPTION AND KNOWLEDGE ON BURDEN OF CARE AMONG INFORMAL CAREGIVERS OF CHILDREN WITH SEIZURE DISORDERS IN ABEOKUTA

Abstract

  Background: Globally, there are about 50 million people living with seizure disorders, 60% of these are children. The prevalence of Children with Seizure Disorders (CSD) in Nigeria range form 8 – 13 per 1000. The burden of CSD is severe and challenging to Informal Caregivers (ICGs).Factors such as social support, religiosity and gender have been associated with Burden of Care (BoC) of CSD. However, there is a dearth of that which examined the relation between illness perception and knowledge on burden of care among informal caregivers of children with seizure disorders. This study, therefore, aimed at examining this relationship. Methods: The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping guided the study. The design for this study was the cross-sectional survey. 265 ICGs were randomly selected from the register of Child and Adolescent patients attending the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Abeokuta. The instruments used were BoC ( = 0.84), Illness Perception ( =0.78), and Seizure Knowledge ( Data were analysed using Multiple regression and One way Analysis at p<0.05 level of significance. Results: The respondents’ age was 33.808.03 years. The results indicate that caregivers with high level of illness perception scored significantly higher on burden of care than those with low level of illness perception among caregivers of children with seizure disorders t(263) = -4.408; p<.01). However, caregivers with high level of illness perception recorded a mean score of (54.56) and those with low level of illness perception recorded a mean score of (45.60). Conclusion: It was concluded that burden of care among caregivers of children with seizure disorders were determined by illness perception and seizure knowledge. Key words:  Informal caregivers, Seizure disorders among children, Burden of care,