Self-care practice and associated factors among epileptic patients: a cross-sectional study, Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: epilepsy results in multidimensional and long term effect on the patients and society. Self-care practice is critical for epileptic patient. So far, the issue of self-care practice still considered as the most important cause of poorly controlled epilepsy. Yet comprehensive epilepsy self-care practice is not recognized, which is not addressed with medical treatment alone has not been studied particular in Ethiopia. The objective was to assess self-care practice and associated factors among epileptic patients on follow up at Jimma Town public hospitals, 2020. METHODS: institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 08 - May 20/2020. Data was collected using structured interviewer administered questionnaire and data extraction checklist. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 297 study participants. Data was entered to EPI data version 3.5.3 and exported to SPSS version 23.0 for analysis. Variables with p-value < 0.25 on bivariate analysis were candidated for multivariate analyses. Factors with p value < 0.05 on multivariate analyses were considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: a total of 297 study participants were included in the study giving a response rate of 99.0%. Of study participants 146(49.2%) of them were had good self-care practice. Residence (AOR= 1.712, 95%CI: 1.034-2.836, P- 0.037), Seizure frequency (AOR = 0.288, 95% CI: 0.091-0.907, P-0.034), felt stigma (AOR=0.565, 95%CI: 0.342-0.935, P- 0.026) and medication adherence (AOR=0.391, 95%CI: 0.240-0.638, P-0.000) were significantly associated with self-management practice. CONCLUSION: this study found that half of the study participants were had poor self-care practice. Residence, felt stigma, increased seizure frequency and not adherence to medication were factors contributed for poor self-care practice. Therefore, intervention strategies focused on contributing factor for poor self-care practice should be considered.