Knowledge of Bystanders on Pre-Hospital Care Following Physical Trauma

Abstract

Background: Physical trauma is a kind of life-threatening physical injury with an increasing health care burden in Sri Lanka. Emergency Therapeutic Unit (ETU) admissions following trauma incidents seem to be increasing nowadays in Sri Lanka. The knowledge and qualities of the first responder or the first person who sees the accident and attends to help the victim, are important to minimize the affecting the victim’s conditions or complications following traumatic injury. Objective: To assess the knowledge of the bystanders on pre-hospital care, in looking after emergency physical trauma patients transport to the hospital Methods: This was an interview-based cross-sectional descriptive study, conducted in the THK using all bystanders, irrespective of age and gender, of patients who were admitted to the emergency trauma center & ETU at Teaching Hospital Karapitiya, following physical trauma as the study population. Data collection were done using an interviewer administered questionnaire from October to end of November in 2019. Knowledge of the participants was assessed using 07 questions. The total marks scored for the knowledge varied from 0-14 marks. The total knowledge was categorized into three knowledge categories based on the marks obtained; poor (0.0–4.66), moderate (4.67-9.33) and good (9.34-14.00) knowledge. This questionnaire was a self-developed questionnaire and pre-tested with the help of nursing students of FAHS & Nursing school in Galle. Results: Out of 470 participants, 334 (71.2%) were males. The highest mark scored was 12 and the minimum was 07. Around 34% of the participants obtained 08 marks out of 14 marks. Out of the participants, 2.1% obtained 11 marks out of 14 marks. Maximum marks of 12 were obtained by only 4% of the participants. The mean (±SD) of the total knowledge was 8.162 (±1.075). The majority of the participants (88.1%) were at a moderate level of knowledge of pre-hospital care regarding an emergency physical trauma condition whereas the percentage of poor knowledge was zero. However, only 11.9% of the participants had good knowledge in emergency physical trauma management. Conclusions: A larger portion of participants has a moderate level of knowledge, rather than a good level of knowledge, on emergency pre-hospital care for physical trauma.