Maternal knowledge about childhood epilepsy is an important aspect affecting their
healthcare practices and attitudes towards their children. Objective: Assess level of mothers'
knowledge about childhood epilepsy, to investigate its relation to their healthcare practices
and attitudes, and to identify socio-demographic, educational and disease-related factors
associated with mothers' knowledge level. Setting: The study was carried out in Smouha
Health Insurance Child Mental Health Clinic affiliated to the Health Insurance Organization,
Alexandria–Egypt. Subjects: The subjects of present study comprised of 308 mothers
attending the clinic for follow up of their epileptic children. Tool: A predesigned
questionnaire was used to assess mothers' epilepsy-related knowledge, practices and
attitudes. Results: The majority of mothers (80.5%) showed unsatisfactory knowledge. Most
of them (91.9%) agreed on observing the child all the time for safety; showed good
compliance with children's medications for dose (83.4%) and time (72.7%). More than half
(54.2%) did not treat their children as normal ones (overprotection/rejection). The higher
level of mother's knowledge was associated significantly with disagreement on observing the
child all the time (P= 0.000), and with medication compliance (P= 0.034). Only grand mal
seizures predicted higher level of mothers' knowledge (B= 0.961, P= 0.015). Conclusion:
Mothers' knowledge about epilepsy was considerably low. Higher knowledge level was
associated with positive attitudes and practices. Recommendations: Integrating an
educational component to healthcare plans of epileptic children is recommended.