Knowledge in pre-hospital emergency and risk management among outdoor adventure practitioners in East Africa afro-alpine mountains

INTRODUCTION: The enjoyment of nature and other benefits of outdoor activities happen amid inherent hazards. This calls for knowledge and competency in emergency and risk management. Practitioners in outdoor activities, such as mountaineering, thus need to be knowledgeable on how to manage risks and attend to emergencies in their practice. The study sought to establish the preparedness of East African mountaineering practitioners in prehospital emergency and risk management. It sought to establish their knowledge on prehospital emergency and risk management, based on their age, gender, level of education and refresher training. METHODS: The study purposively sampled one hundred and thirty six (N = 136) outdoor adventure practitioners from the Afro-alpine mountain areas in East Africa. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant relationship between the outdoor practitioners' knowledge in prehospital emergency risk management and their age, gender, level of education, refresher training. Somers' d was used to test the hypotheses. RESULTS: It was established that the knowledge scores of prehospital emergency and risk management for the mountaineering practitioners was low. It was also established that the knowledge scores of outdoor practitioners were not dependent on their age, gender, and work experience. However, there was a significant relationship between the outdoor adventure practitioners' knowledge scores and their highest level of education as well as refresher training. CONCLUSIONS: The study concluded that there were gaps in the knowledge of prehospital risk management of the East African Afro-alpine mountaineering practitioners. It recommends frequent and regular training and re-certification among outdoor adventure practitioners in order to raise the knowledge in prehospital emergency risk management.