Background:
First aid is medical care immediately provided after any health emergency
on-site. First aid constitutes a variety of simple, easy, and yet vital and life-saving skills and maneuvers that tend to save a person in any life-threatening condition before essential help arrives. If provided immediately and properly, first-aid can reduce mortality and morbidity to astonishingly low levels. In this study, we tried to explore and assess the knowledge levels of medical students regarding first-aid medical care and find different associations with demographic factors that could affect the knowledge level of the students.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted at KMC (A public sector medical
college) and NWSM (A private sector medical college) from March to June 2023.Data was collected from 252 medical students from both institutions through a pre-formed questionnaire containing a total of 15 questions regarding first-aid medical care. A simple 1-point scale was used to assess the knowledge level of medical students.
Results:
Out of 252 medical students, 66(26.2%) had excellent knowledge,
87(34.5%) students ha adequate knowledge, 77(30.6%) needed improvement in their knowledge and 22(8.7%) had poor knowledge. There was no statistically significant difference between the knowledge level of KMC and NWSM medical students (P-value 0.438). Both male and female medical students had almost similar knowledge levels. There was no statistically significant difference between their knowledge levels (P-value 0.350). However, the knowledge level improved with increasing study year (1st to 5th year) (P-value <0.01).
Conclusion:
Overall knowledge level of medical students from both institutions was
not brilliant. Very few students scored excellently while most of them either needed improvement or had poor knowledge regarding first aid. The senior years(5th, 4th, 3rd) they had better knowledge compared to junior years (1st and 2nd).
Keywords:
First-aid, knowledge, Medical students, public sector, private sector, Peshawar.
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