LEVEL OF AWARENESS AMONG PARENTS IN PEDIATRICS FIRST AID AND THE LEVEL OF PROTECTION FOR THEIR CHILDREN FROM RISKS IN AL-MADINA AL-MUNWWARAH, SAUDI

Introduction and literature review:Millions and millions of children are getting hurt or even die by injuries happen to them due to inadequate response by their parents or lack of Immediate assistance . accidents tend to happen with kids a lot more frequently , knowing how to perform first aid techniques can save your children's life and keep them away from any harm [1].Taking rapid action while waiting for professional help, can dramatically reduce deaths and injuries [2] .The prognosis of any injuries after accidents mainly depends on management provided to the child immediately following the incident. This reflects the major importance of the first-aid provided to the child , which can be life-saving . [3]


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 6(5), 346-353 347 A study in Baghdad included 1032 mothers aged from 15-50 years .The results revealed that the level of knowledge of mothers is so low regarding the following cases : prevention of injuries from chemicals and detergents, preventing electrical accidents caused by power sockets and electrical appliances , accidents caused by fire, accidents caused by sharp instruments in the kitchen. The study also showed thet older mothers were statistically found to have a better level of knowledge than younger mothers. Higher educated mothers' were statistically associated with a lower level of knowledge in accident prevention. [7] There is study in Taiwan conducted on 445 parents , showed that parents' overall rate of knowledge of first aid was 72%. Knowledge regarding choking and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were significantly low . There was a significantly positive correlation between parents' knowledge and self-efficacy of first aid (p < 0.01) . [8] Based on these studies, it is observed that the awareness of parents about dealing with injuries was poor for their children, and there is insufficient awareness to deal with these cases. Ignoring this disaster problem lead to increase the proportion of accidents in hospitals, health centers and increase the proportion of death . So we chose them as our target population. As far as the literature review was done. It was found out that no one has done this research on the parents in Almadinah Almonawarah. At the end of this research we are going to measure the level of parents awareness about the pediatric first aid, to associate between the pediatric first aid and their sociodemographic variables. Our main aim is to make the parents the first qualified paramedic who can save their children life in emergency cases.

Method:-
A cross-sectional descriptive study was adopted in this study to measure the level of parents' awareness about the pediatric First Aid, and to describe the effect of parents' socio-demographic variables in relation to pediatric First Aid knowledge. Subjects of this study are parents who have children from 1 month to 14 years old and living in medina, While non parent and those who don't live in medina are excluded.
Data were statistically analyzed with the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS version 16.0 for windows, Chicago, IL). Data was presented using frequencies, mean and standard deviation as appropriate. Data entry and analysis was done using Excel. Chi-square test of significance was used to measure the association between variables with p-values of 0.05 as a cut-off level of significance.
For the purpose of assessing the knowledge of subjects regarding First Aid, A well-structured questionnaire was developed by the researchers to ease the computation of the score of knowledge. The questionnaire consists of thirty questions covering socio-demographic data, descriptive data, and questions assessing the knowledge for most of pediatric First Aid as sun stroke, wounds, chocking, burns, convulsions, foreign body in the eyes, ears, and nose, snake bite/scorpion sting, animal bites, poisoning, bleeding. The information in the questionnaire is based on EMERGENCY GUIDELINES FOR SCHOOLS 3RD EDITION, 2007 Ohio Department . [10] The survey of knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) score was calculated according to the number of correct responses ( Table 2 & 3). Each correct answer was given one point and each wrong answer was given zero. Parents who correctly answered 50% or more of the questions were categorized as having a good level of knowledge, while parents who scored below this were classified as having poor knowledge. Associations of respondents' KAP score (≥ 12 marks) with gender and education level was analyzed using Chi-Square test. 95% confidence interval was also mentioned.
Official permissions obtained from the scientific ethical committee of the college. Informed consent obtained from all the participants after describing the aim of the study. Privacy and confidentiality will be assured as questionnaire will be filled anonymously

Results:-
A total of 1715 parents participated in the study. Nearly an equal percentage of fathers (815, 47.5%) and mothers (900, 52.5%) filled the questionnaire. All of parents were married and have kids. Table 1, shows the sociodemographic distribution of the study subjects. There was no significant difference in the distribution of fathers and mothers in the study (p= 0.6715). Some demographic differences were noticeable between mothers and fathers in the sample; a statistical significance was noticed regarding the living place, education, and number of kids among the participants.  Almost all participants are aware of the importance of learning First Aid in general even without the presence of kids suffering of chronic diseases, but unfortunately 55.5% of them didn't own First Aid bag at home. The ones who didn't own a First Aid bag explain this as they are not aware of its importance and they don't know its contents.
A percussive result revealed that 1139 parent (66.4%) didn't receive training on First Aid but the want to get it, and only 360 parent (21%) had this training more than a year ago.   Table 2 & 3 shows the knowledge of First Aid as reported by the study population. The individual responses to various statements of the questionnaire have been mentioned and were used for the survey of knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) score.

Knowledge of subjects regarding First Aid:-
In table 2, higher percentage of participant parents answered correctly to management of sun-stroke, deep wounds, choking, epistaxis, and some of the diabetic emergencies. While most of them answered wrongly regarding management of hypoglycemic coma, epilepsy.
In table 3, higher percentage of participant parents answered correctly to management of burns, cardiac arrest, fracture, electric shock, acute asthma, eye exposure to chemicals, foreign body in ear&nose, snake bites, and hypothermia. While wrong answers were prominent when dealing with loss of conscious level, poisoning and high grade fever.      Table 4 shows the association of baseline knowledge of First Aid in the study population and their sociodemographic variables. High KAP scores (≥ 12 marks) were observed among participating fathers than mothers, pvalue = 0.0444. Parents living in Urban area (in madinah) got more KAP score than those living Suburb area (outside madinah), p-value < 0.0001. Responders with higher level of education have a remarkable higher KAP score, with 87.6% answered correctly with KAP score more than 12 marks. On the other hand, only 12.7% of illiterate parents get a KAP score ≥ 12 marks.
There was extreme significant association between KAP score and some socio-demographic variables, such as the parents' gender, living place & level of education.

Discussion:-
First aid is considered to be a vital initial step for providing effective and rapid intervention that helps to reduce serious injuries and improve the chances of survival. The lower the awareness of first aid techniques , the greater the risk associated with domestic accidents. All parents should be educated about basic first aid. Increasing the training level will increase the ability to face the most common of accidents without panicking but by doing the right thing [10] .
Our result found that most of parents have an average knowledge about children first aid but also near 500 parent have a weak knowledge . Although many parents agree on the importance of learning about first aid , only 55.5% of them didn't have first aid bag at home .Majority (66.4%) of parents were didn't receive training regarding First Aid in present study. This is in similar with the previous observation made in Taiwan noted that was a significantly relation between parents' knowledge and self-efficacy of first aid (p < 0.01) . [8] In present study higher percentage of parents have adequate management of sun-stroke, deep wounds, choking, epistaxis, and some of the diabetic emergencies. In other hand most of them have wrong management of hypoglycaemic coma, epilepsy. This is similar to the observation made also in Taiwan noted that parents' overall rate of knowledge of first aid was high and Knowledge regarding choking and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were significantly low.
Our result indicate that High KAP scores were observed among participating fathers than mothers . This gets along with the result in Baghdad were it showed that the level or awareness of mothers is so low against many serious cases. [7] Study results shown extreme significant relation between KAP score and some socio-demographic variables, such as the parents' gender, living place & level of education.