Mothers′ Knowledge, Practice and Attitude about Children’s Injuries and First Aid

Background: Mothers as a caregiver are playing the vital role in the prevention of childhood injuries at home. They are the primary persons who can help the children and perform first aid on them so that, they can prevent the complications and sometimes prevent death. Aim: was to assess mothers′ knowledge, practice and attitude about children's injuries and first aid. Subjects and Method: Design: Quantitative descriptive research design was used in this study. Settings: This study was conducted at pediatric outpatient clinics at Tanta University Hospital. Subjects: Convenience sampling of mothers (64) who had children up to 12 years old were the target population. Tools of the study: Tool I: Mothers' knowledge questionnaire about first aid: it included two Parts: part (1) Socio-Demographic Characteristics of mothers and socio-Demographic Characteristics of children. Part (2): mothers knowledge about items related to the incidence and types of home injures, medical emergencies suffered by their children in the previous 4 weeks. Tool II: Mothers' practice towards first aid measures to be taken during home injuries. Tool III: Mothers' attitude towards first aid measures. Results: it was apparent that nearly 90% of the studied mothers had knowledge about first aid, while 36.9% of them reported correct answers related to first aid for different conditions with total mean score of mothers' knowledge19±2.8. Also all mothers (%100) agreed that mothers who have school-age children should know everything about first aid, and first aid training must be properly provided to mothers compared to nearly three quarters (73.7%) of them who agreed that they need training on first aids. Conclusion: The study concluded that, mothers' knowledge about first aid is fair. There was significant correlation between mother education and their total knowledge. Health members and first aid training course were the most sources for mothers about first aid. All mothers were willing to attend training course about first aid. Recommendations: Training courses about first aid must be provided to mothers in pediatric settings. Health members should continue their teaching about first aid periodically in the pediatric settings where they are working in. Media as TV should also, introduce information about common children's injures, and the first aid required for each type