Berkeley Scientific Journal

We conducted the first national cross-sectional survey of Chinese and Vietnamese American adults about their knowledge, attitudes, and practice towards epilepsy. We used a convenience sampling method to recruit 2,831 adults in 37 cities from 7 states. In this article, we present our results from the analysis of a subset of the college student population. A 34-item survey instrument available in English, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Vietnamese was administered by trained surveyors to 371 college students in 4 states. Chinese and Vietnamese college students generally held the same attitudes towards and had similar misunderstandings about epilepsy. One notable disparity in attitudes is that 15% of Chinese, as compared to 40% of Vietnamese, felt that PWE have below-average intelligence. We found that misunderstandings about and discrimination towards epilepsy among college students generally did not differ between different genders or ethnicities.