Abstract
PurposeThis study was carried out to test the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the Stigma Scale of Epilepsy (SSE), with aim to better understand the public stigmatizing attitudes of epilepsy in China and help elucidate stigma determinants for interventions.MethodsThe SSE was translated into Simplified Chinese Mandarin. In this study, most of the participants were enrolled via convenience sampling by randomly distributing questionnaires on the streets and parts of the participants were recruited by an online platform named Wenjuanxing. We assessed the psychometric properties of the SSE in 310 Chinese native-speaker. Cronbach's alpha was tested for reliability. Index of Content Validity (CVI) was calculated. Exploratory and confirmatory analysis were used to explore the factor structure and verify the validity of SSE.ResultsThe Cronbach's alpha is 0.936 for the overall scale, and the CVI value is greater than 0.78. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) extracted SSE six factors: the fear of seizure attacks (factor 1), sympathy for patients with epilepsy (PWEs) (factor 2); difficulties faced by PWEs (factor 3); speculation on PWEs' feeling (factor 4); discrimination against PWEs (factor 5); and knowledge about epilepsy (factor 6). The item 13 was proven to be problematic and has been eliminated. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) ensured the great construct validity (χ2/SD = 1.725, goodness of fit index (GFI) = 0.916, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.048), convergent validity (the factor loads of each item corresponding to each latent variable >0.6, average variance extracted (AVE) > 0.5, and composite reliability (CR) > 0.7), and discrimination validity (all of the absolute value of correlation coefficient are <0.5,and less than the square root of AVE) of the SSE.ConclusionsThe Chinese version of the SSE scale was a valid and reliable tool to measure epilepsy-associated stigma in the Chinese society.
Highlights
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disease characterized as excessive hyper synchronized discharge of brain neurons [1, 2]
Considering that its high internal consistency and validity has not been confirmed in China, we proposed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Stigma Scale of Epilepsy (SSE) and validate the Chinese version of SSE to access the epilepsyrelated stigmatization of the public in China
Fear of seizure attacks; factor 2 refers to the public’s sympathy for Patients with epilepsy (PWEs); factor 3 refers to the difficulties faced by PWEs; factor 4 refers to the public’s speculation on PWEs’ feeling; factor 5 refers to the discrimination against PWEs; and factor 6 refers to the knowledge about epilepsy
Summary
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disease characterized as excessive hyper synchronized discharge of brain neurons [1, 2]. Patients with epilepsy (PWEs) suffer from the physical problems (such as, fractures and bruising from injuries related to seizures), and a series of complex psychosocial disorders, such as anxiety, depression, suicidal risk, stigma and discrimination, Validation of Chinese Version of SSE exclusion, and overprotection [1, 3–6]. Unlike other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, the onset of seizures is sudden, uncontrollable, and always accompanied with a series of unsightly manifestations, such as sudden falls, limbs twitching, and foaming at the mouth [15], which may be a shock or an unacceptable thing to the witnesses for the first time These feelings will alienate the witnesses from PWEs, which is a form of stigma.
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