Employing people with epilepsy from the perspective of Malaysian human resource

Abstract

Under- and unemployment continues to be a major problem of people with epilepsy in Malaysia due to the attitudes and unawareness of the potential employers and society. Epilepsy is still a tremulous issue in the eyes of the employers regardless of the gender, ethnic and type of the organization. The fate of people with epilepsy will not improve if no appropriate actions are taken seriously. Fifty eligible subjects that include the HR managers, assistant managers, executives or those who are well known and have influence in recruitment and work practice at their working organizations involved in this study and had filled in self-completion questionnaires. Descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviations and percentages were mostly used to summarize the data. Other statistical test applied was x² with the p-value of 0.05. Factors like safety, wrong perception of epilepsy, falls at workplace and burden to the organizations are some of the misconceptions haunting the employers. Although most of the employers agreed that having suited qualifications and experience to the job applied are priorities given to any job application, many of these employers were still unsure and not ready to employ people with epilepsy.