More than half of 20,000 young people questioned in a major survey said they would not date a person with epilepsy, a European conference on Epilepsy Research in Dublin has been told.

Professor Ley Sander of UCL Institute of Neurology London told the conference that this was because the stigma of epilepsy remained a major issue in the public mind.

Speaking at the European Forum on Epilepsy Research at the Dublin Convention Centre at the weekend, he also highlighted the fact that such stigma often causes as much suffering as, or more than, the physical manifestations, and affects how people respond to the disease burden.

Professor Sander, who is also a leading figure in the UK Epilepsy Society, said epilepsy was the commonest serious neurological condition, affecting 60 million people worldwide.

He said the disease had a high risk of premature mortality and could place a heavy burden to the individual, including stigmatisation.

The conference was told that the personal experience of people with epilepsy worldwide was characterised by exclusion, rejection, blame and other manifestations.

It resulted in social exclusion including children being banned from school, relationship problems and civil and human rights violations.

Dr Christine Linehan of TCD told the conference that research had shown that six million people in Europe had epilepsy and that the cost was in excess of €20 billion per annum.