Impact of a postcrash first aid educational program on knowledge, perceived skills confidence, and skills utilization among traffic police officers: a single-arm before-after intervention study

Abstract

Background: An overwhelming proportion of road traffic deaths and injuries in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) occur in prehospital environments. Lay first responders such as police officers play an important role in providing initial assistance to victims of road traffic injuries either alone or in collaboration with others. The present study evaluated a postcrash first aid (PFA) educational program developed for police officers in Tanzania. Method: A 16-h PFA educational program was conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for 135 police officers. Participants completed training surveys before, immediately and 6 months after the training (before, N = 135; immediately after, N = 135; after 6 months, N = 102). The primary outcome measures were PFA knowledge, perceived skills confidence, and skills utilization. Parametric and nonparametric tests were used to analyse changes in outcome. Results: The mean PFA knowledge score increased from 44.73% before training (SD = 20.70) to 72.92% 6 months after training (SD = 18.12), p < .001, N = 102. The mean PFA perceived skills confidence score (measured on a 1-5 Likert scale) increased from 1.96 before training (SD = 0.74) to 3.78 6 months after training (SD = 0.70), p < .001, N = 102. Following training, application of the recovery position skill (n = 42, 46%) and application of the bleeding control skill (n = 45, 49%) were reported by nearly half of the responding officers. Less than a quarter of officers reported applying head and neck immobilization skills (n = 20, 22%) following training. Conclusion: A PFA educational program has shown to improve police officers' knowledge and perceived skills confidence on provision of first aid. However qualitative research need to be conducted to shed more light regarding reasons for low utilization of trained first aid skills during follow-up.

Investigation on the Effect of Graded Emergency Nursing Group under the Assistance of Multidisciplinary First Aid Knowledge Internet-Based Approach on the First Aid of Acute Myocardial Infarction

“…Conventional first aid models are often less normative and methodical and tend to make mistakes in the actual on-site rescue process with low efficiency, resulting in poor patient outcomes. With the rapid development of Internet technology in recent years, the “Internet + smart first aid” mode has been established in hospitals, which integrates modern Internet communication technology into clinical first aid, breaks through the spatiotemporal limitations of traditional prehospital rescue medical activity, better achieves prehospital and in-hospital seamless docking, and greatly eliminates the rescue blind area [ 18 ]. AMI patients have an urgent and complex condition, which requires multiple departments to carry out a common rescue treatment by the way of consultation, which has achieved the expected effect in the first aid of AMI [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Implementation and evaluation of a pilot WHO community first aid responder training in Kinshasa, DR Congo: A mixed method study

“…Evidence shows that emergency care short courses (including layperson first aid courses [ 10 , 11 , 27 , 28 ]) increase participants’ confidence, knowledge, and skills [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] . The WHO CFAR course curriculum was developed with clear learning objectives, a context adaptive content, a rational delivery mode and a well-defined target audience: all key factors for effective learning [33] .…”

Traffic police officers’ use of first aid skills at work: a qualitative content analysis of focus group discussions in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

“…A mannequin was used for demonstration and practice. At the end of the training, police o cers were given reference lea ets on the basic steps of managing injured victims (16).…”