Awareness Of The Neurological Diseases: Comparisons Of The Attendies At Secondary and Tertiary Neurological Oupatient Centers In The Sample Of Ankara City.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Both neurological diseases and related disabilities are growing all over the world and in our country. Awareness of the neurological diseases is thought to be less than the expected.

METHODS: The aim of this study is; to investigate the awareness of the neurological diseases in the secondary and tertiary neurological outpatient service attendies and to assess its correlations between the patient’s demographics.

RESULTS: A total of 540 patients were included in the study. Alzheimer disease was found to be most known neurological disease and Multiple sclerosis was the least one. The awareness of the diseases correlated with the level of education. Younger patients were seem to be more aware about the neurological diseases than the older patients. Although currently widespread usage of internet/media, we found that patients prefer mostly to take advice from their family practitioners for being to attend to the neurological outpatient services. We comment that this result is a positive finding in terms of usage of health care system and patient-physician relationships.

CONCLUSION: There is need for increasing the awareness of the neurological diseases for both early diagnosis of neurological diseases and to decrease the related disability.