attitudes toward rational drug use and medication self-management among parents of children with epilepsy

Background: epileptic seizures are controlled with antiepileptic drugs (aeds). the purpose of using aeds is to prevent seizures by maintaining the effective dose of one or more aeds. using a medication according to its prescription involving dosage and dosing times is expressed as medication adherence. objectives: this study was performed to assess medication self-management and attitudes toward rational drug use among parents of children with epilepsy. methods: a descriptive and cross-sectional design was used in this study. the data were collected using a data collection form, the parental attitude scale for rational drug use (pasrdu), and the turkish pediatric epilepsy medication self-management questionnaire (pemsq-tr). results: the mean scores of participants (n = 192) on the pasrdu were 156.02 (standard deviation [sd] = 9.86), 133.02 (sd = 7.74), and 23 (sd = 7.58) on the total scale, accurate and conscious use subdimension, and effective and safe use subdimension, respectively. the mean scores of participants on the pemsq-tr were 81.38 (sd = 7.13), 42.4 (sd = 6.32), 24.3 (sd = 1.6), 11.36 (sd = 4.35), and 3.32 (sd = 1.94) on the total scale, information about epilepsy and treatment subdimension, adherence to treatment and clinic appointments subdimension, treatment-related obstacles subdimension, and treatment and social life subdimension, respectively. parents’ educational status (f = 0.01, p < 0.05), child’s age at first seizure (u = 0.026, p < 0.05), frequency of seizure (u = 0.043, p < 0.05), age of the child (χ 2= 0.002, p < 0.05), and parents’ age (f = 0.036, p < 0.05) had a significant effect on the total and subscale scores of the pasrdu and pemsq-tr. conclusions: this study showed that although parents of children with epilepsy had positive attitudes toward rational drug use, their epilepsy medication self-management was relatively poor. the improvement of the understanding of medication self-management can ultimately increase adherence, which will affect the clinical outcomes and quality of life in children with epilepsy.