SELF ASSURANCE AND PERCEIVED URGENCY IN PATIENTS WITH EPILEPSY

Patients with epilepsy commonly have associated psychological, psychiatric and social issues. It is the fourth most common neurological disease. One in 26 people develops epilepsy during the lifetime. It is usually defined as a tendency to recurrent seizures and patients feel stigmatized by the society and they develop social maladjustment as well. The aim of the study was to identify variables related to self esteem and perceive stress in person with epilepsy. The sample comprised of 40 diagnosed patients of epilepsy and 40 non epileptic by using the purposive sampling. The epileptic patients were taken from S.S. Hospital, B.H.U. Varanasi. Sorensen self-esteem test for testing the self assurance and Perceived stress test for testing the urgency were used for data collection. The results indicate that the epileptic patients scored high on self esteem scale and perceived stress as compared to non epileptic and found to be significant on 0.01 levels (t=3.20 and 2.15 respectively). Higher score on self esteem test indicates low self esteem and unhealthy adaptation with life. The results of ANOVA clearly revealed that the main effect of sex and disease status have been found statistically significant (F 1, 76= 11.55 and F 1, 76= 11.89, p<0.01) on self esteem but interaction effect of sex and nature of disease is not statistically significant. In order to determine the significance of self esteem and onset of disease in predicting their perceived stress step-wise multiple regression analysis was done. It is clear that self esteem factor emerged as the best predictor of perceived stress in contributing 35.2 percent in the total variance. Examination of ? revealed that the said predictor contributed negatively (? =-0.59) to perceived stress. The present study suggest that epilepsy affects personal satisfaction and ideal functioning of life and that individual may experience considerable perceived stress and negativity in life. Perceived stress is one of the most frequently seizure triggers in patient with epilepsy. In short, self-esteem is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes the individual holds toward himself.