TITLE:
Implementing the First-Aid Education into the College Curriculum in China: The Efficacy Study of the First-Aid Workshop at Wenzhou-Kean University
AUTHORS:
Bowen Cao, Jiaqi Lang, Jiayi Chen, Jinze Yu, Liping Tan, Yu Meng, Fangfang Cai
KEYWORDS:
First-Aid, Education, University, Curriculum
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biosciences and Medicines,
Vol.6 No.12,
December
27,
2018
ABSTRACT: In the event of an emergency, the timely and appropriate first-aid operations provided by non-medical personnel at the scene of accident before the arrival of medical professionals are crucial to help minimize the frequency in accidental induced deaths and injuries. Thus, it is essential to provide the effective first-aid training to the public. College students are considered to be the ideal candidates due to their excellent learning ability, maturity as well as the strong adaptability. Not as in most advanced countries, little education on the first aid is currently offered in Chinese universities especially those non-medical institutes. To determine the feasibility of introducing the first-aid education into the school curriculum, here we reported the study on the efficacy of the one-day first-aid training at Wenzhou-Kean University (WKU), an American-Chinese joint education institute. The general survey was initially conducted among all the freshman (n = 620) students at WKU to identify their interests as well as demand for the first-aid education. Along with the one-day first aid workshop which included both the lecture and the operation sessions, the pre-post study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of the workshop. The first-aid knowledge and skills as well as social awareness were judged before and after the training among the participants (Pre: n = 95; Post: n = 85). Results demonstrated that more than 95% of students appreciate the importance of first-aid training in universities indicating an extremely high demand. More than 40% students prefer to have the first-aid education as part of their curriculum. It also revealed that students lack professional knowledge towards the key first-aid skills such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The pre-post efficacy study suggested that participants’ knowledge as well as skills have been significantly improved after the workshop. The correctness rate of objective questions for CPR was raised from 68.4% to almost 100%; For Heimlich method, the accuracy rate was elevated about 2.4 fold. We also surveyed the social awareness among the participants. The ratio of people who are willing to take a leading role in emergency rescue at the accidental site with the absence of medical professionals increased from 11.5% to 23.2%. To conclude, our study indicates that the one-day first-aid workshop not only significantly improved students’ skills and knowledge, but also raised their social awareness. Therefore, there is an urgent need to implement first-aid education into the curriculum of WKU and other Chinese Universities.