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Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: The availability of prehospital trauma care is an important means of reducing serious injuries and fatalities associated with road traffic injuries (RTIs). Lay responders such as traffic police play an important role in the provision of prehospital trauma care to RTI victims, especially...

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Autores principales: Lukumay, Gift G., Ndile, Menti L., Outwater, Anne H., Mkoka, Dickson A., Padyab, Mojgan, Saveman, Britt-Inger, Backteman-Erlanson, Susann
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6247529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30458715
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-018-0199-9
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author Lukumay, Gift G.
Ndile, Menti L.
Outwater, Anne H.
Mkoka, Dickson A.
Padyab, Mojgan
Saveman, Britt-Inger
Backteman-Erlanson, Susann
author_facet Lukumay, Gift G.
Ndile, Menti L.
Outwater, Anne H.
Mkoka, Dickson A.
Padyab, Mojgan
Saveman, Britt-Inger
Backteman-Erlanson, Susann
author_sort Lukumay, Gift G.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The availability of prehospital trauma care is an important means of reducing serious injuries and fatalities associated with road traffic injuries (RTIs). Lay responders such as traffic police play an important role in the provision of prehospital trauma care to RTI victims, especially where there is no established prehospital care system. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to investigate knowledge, self-reported practice, and attitudes toward post-crash first aid among traffic police officers in Tanzania. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania between July–September 2017 to investigate knowledge, self-reported practice and attitude among traffic police officers during provision of post-crash care. We used simple random technique to recruit 340 traffic police officers, self -administered questionnaires were used to collect data. The researchers used descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square tests to analyze the data. RESULTS: A total of 340 traffic police officers were surveyed. Nearly two thirds (65.3%) reported having had post-crash first aid on-the job training; a slightly larger proportion (70.9%) reported that they had cared for RTI victims in the previous year. The survey responses showed that, generally, traffic police officers’ level of knowledge about post-crash first aid to RTI victims was low—about 3% of the surveyed officers possessed knowledge at a level considered good. Also, there was a statistically significant correlation between higher educational attainment and greater knowledgeability (p = 0.015). Almost all of the officers (96%) had a positive attitude toward providing post-crash first aid to RTI victims. CONCLUSIONS: Improved training of Tanzania traffic police officers, by means of an updated post-crash first aid curriculum and updated resources is recommended. Also, user-friendly post-crash first aid leaflets should be provided to traffic police for their reference. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12873-018-0199-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-62475292018-11-26 Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey Lukumay, Gift G. Ndile, Menti L. Outwater, Anne H. Mkoka, Dickson A. Padyab, Mojgan Saveman, Britt-Inger Backteman-Erlanson, Susann BMC Emerg Med Research Article BACKGROUND: The availability of prehospital trauma care is an important means of reducing serious injuries and fatalities associated with road traffic injuries (RTIs). Lay responders such as traffic police play an important role in the provision of prehospital trauma care to RTI victims, especially where there is no established prehospital care system. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to investigate knowledge, self-reported practice, and attitudes toward post-crash first aid among traffic police officers in Tanzania. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania between July–September 2017 to investigate knowledge, self-reported practice and attitude among traffic police officers during provision of post-crash care. We used simple random technique to recruit 340 traffic police officers, self -administered questionnaires were used to collect data. The researchers used descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square tests to analyze the data. RESULTS: A total of 340 traffic police officers were surveyed. Nearly two thirds (65.3%) reported having had post-crash first aid on-the job training; a slightly larger proportion (70.9%) reported that they had cared for RTI victims in the previous year. The survey responses showed that, generally, traffic police officers’ level of knowledge about post-crash first aid to RTI victims was low—about 3% of the surveyed officers possessed knowledge at a level considered good. Also, there was a statistically significant correlation between higher educational attainment and greater knowledgeability (p = 0.015). Almost all of the officers (96%) had a positive attitude toward providing post-crash first aid to RTI victims. CONCLUSIONS: Improved training of Tanzania traffic police officers, by means of an updated post-crash first aid curriculum and updated resources is recommended. Also, user-friendly post-crash first aid leaflets should be provided to traffic police for their reference. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12873-018-0199-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-11-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6247529/ /pubmed/30458715 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-018-0199-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lukumay, Gift G.
Ndile, Menti L.
Outwater, Anne H.
Mkoka, Dickson A.
Padyab, Mojgan
Saveman, Britt-Inger
Backteman-Erlanson, Susann
Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title_full Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title_fullStr Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title_full_unstemmed Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title_short Provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
title_sort provision of post-crash first aid by traffic police in dar es salaam, tanzania: a cross-sectional survey
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6247529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30458715
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-018-0199-9
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