Journal of General Practice

Knowledge and Attitude of First Aid Skills among Health Science Students at Taibah University

Abstract

Amal Salem Alhejaili and Shorooq Abdulrazzaq Alsubhi

Background: First aid is a simple step that done outside the hospital setting to save someone’s life or prevent condition from worsening until arrival of health care providers. Objective: Assess awareness about first aid knowledge among the female students of health science colleges before and after awareness presentation. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was done among the female students of health science colleges through pre- and post– awareness assessments. Thirteen selected multiple choice questions about various emergency accidents were included in the questionnaire. The awareness presentation contained how to deal with the various emergency accidents was sent to the students via email and the comparison before and after the awareness presentation was analyzed. Results: A total of 110 female students participated in this study. Only, 58 students completed the answers of the questionnaire to compare between pre- and post- awareness with the response rate of 52.7%. There was a statistically significantly improvement in the best dealing with many situations such as checking for any hazards before doing first aid, loss of consciousness if victim can breathe or not, applying pressure in bleeding limb, supporting the fractured bone with a cushion, cooling the burn under cold water, putting the victim in safe place in convulsion and sit the patient and give him the medication in asthmatic attack. Conclusion: This study showed inadequate knowledge about first aid among the female students. Health science students at Taibah University need first aid training program in their curriculum to improve the basic skill about it.