Determinants of first aid knowledge and basic practice among elementary school teachers in Debre Tabor town, Northcentral Ethiopia

Background: Pre-hospital school-based Emergency Medical Service (EMS) at school by school personnel is mandatory for saving the pupils from disability and death attributed to injury-related problems. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the determinant factors of first aid knowledge and basic practice among elementary school teachers in Debre Tabor, Ethiopia. Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study was employed in Debre Tabor among 216 elementary school teachers. A simple random sampling technique with proportional allocation was applied for the selection of the study participants. Data entry was done by Epi data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 21 for cleaning and analysis. Descriptive statistics was performed by using frequency, percentage, and table. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were performed to determine the significance and strength of association at a 95% confidence interval. P-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results and Discussion: Our study revealed that 45.8% of study subjects were knowledgeable on first aid. More than 75% of study participants reported that they have encountered a child who needs first aid. Among these, 64% of them provide first aid. The multivariable analysis revealed that service year (AOR=3.51, 95%CI: (1.06, 11.59)), educational status (AOR=12.15, 95%CI: (3.17, 46.67)), previous first aid training (AOR=0.43, 95%CI: (0.21, 0.87)) and information about first aid (AOR=0.12, 95%CI;(0.03, 0.48)) were found to be significantly associated with having knowledge on first aid. Conclusion: School teachers have low knowledge of first aid. Educational status, service year, previous first aid training and information on first aid were the predictors of first aid knowledge. Introducing essential first aid training in the curriculum during teachers’ training shall be considered. © 2020 Taklual et al.