INTRODUCTION:

First Aid plays a vital role in delivering help to injured/ill people before arriving the professional health care. The workers are not trained in first aid properly. So they do not know to manage some injuries, fever, burns and shock. About 10 per cent of accidents in industry are said to be due to mechanical causes¹.

Heat transfer from one site to another causes burn injury. Disruption of the skin, leads to increased fluid loss; infection; hypothermia; scarring; compromised immunity; and changes in function, appearance, and body image.

In India around 7 million people suffer from burn injuries each year with 1.4 lakh deaths and 2.4 lakh people suffer with disability.

Burn death rates have been decreasing in high income countries. In India burn is more common in poor people due to overcrowding, open stove cooking, floor level cooking and poor house planning. Children due to their physiological, psychological, and developmental differences have a high risk of sustaining a burn injury. Nurses are essential in providing family centered care as the injury itself and required treatment often causes distress, pain and anxiety, appropriate management. The magnitude of injury or chances of survival can be improved by immediate action by appropriate techniques².

Indian child injury death occurs in the age group between from birth to 20 years. This statistically are mentioned various aspect such as Road Traffic injuries 1,52,689 (31%), Fall from bicycles and skating devices cause significant number of head injuries in school children., Drowning 25911(5%), poisoning 26,634 (6%), Fire related burn 23268(5%) and falls10622 (2%) respectively³.

A basic knowledge and understanding of first aid can be invaluable for individuals to be able to provide emergency care in the event of an accident, possibly saving lives and minimizing injury.

The workers are not trained in first aid properly. So they do not know to manage some injuries, fever, burns and shock. About 10 per cent of accidents in industry are said to be due to mechanical causes¹. In term of lives saving the teaching of first aid to student is probably cost-effective⁴.

A nurse who cares for a patient with burn injury should be knowledgeable about the physiologic changes that occur after a burn, as well as astute assessment skills to detect subtle changes in the patient’s condition.

The present study was therefore under taken with objective to assessing the pretest and post test knowledge score of staff nurses regarding first aid management and emergency care of burn patients with selected demographic variables in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

It was an evaluative research study with one group pre- test and post –test design, conducted at different hospital of Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. The sample size of the study was 60 staff nurses (able to understand English and Hindi language) working in different hospitals. The design did not include any control group. The purposive sampling technique was used for selection of subjects for the study. The investigator developed a structured questionnaire to assess the level of knowledge regarding first aid management and emergency care of burn patients.

Tool consists of 2 parts.

Part-I: Deals with demographic variables consist of age, sex, experience in first aid management, and education of staff nurse.

Part-II: Consist of 40 multiple choice questions on selected emergencies among burn patients to assess the knowledge regarding first aid management and emergency care of burn patients.

Formal permission was obtained from concerned authority. The purpose and benefits of the study was explained to subjects and consent was obtained from staff nurses to participate in the study. Data collection procedure was carried out for a period of one week. The time duration taken for each sample was 45 minutes. The collected was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESULT:

Majority of the staff nurse were female (90%), less than or off 25 year old (65%) and studied up to 12th standard was (70%), remaining 30% were studied above the 12^th standard. There was 53(88%) nurses are having professional qualification of GNM, 6(10%) having B.Sc.(N) while 1(2%) was of Post Basic. Within those staff nurse only 24(40%) attended program regarding emergency care of burn patients and remaining 36(60%) have not attended any program regarding this (Table-1).

Table N0. 1. Representing the demographic data of subject

Variables		Frequency	Percentage
Age (in years)	˂ 25	39	65
Age (in years)	˃ 25	21	35
Sex	Male	6	10
Sex	Female	54	90
Education	Undergraduate /HSS	42	70
Education	Graduate	18	30
Professional qualification	GNM	53	88
	Post Basic	1	2
	B.Sc. (N)	6	10
Attended program regarding emergency care of burn patients	Yes	24	40
Attended program regarding emergency care of burn patients	No	36	60

Distribution of subject according to area of practice was Surgical ward 29 (47%), Medicine ward 25 (41%), Intensive care unit (ICU) 6 (10%) and in Eye ward 1(2%). Among our subject 20 (33%) having experience working in burn unit while 40 (67%) having not any experience of the burn unit. In our study there was 45 (75%) having total professional experience of upto 5 year while 15 (25%) having experience of more than 5 years.

Figure 1. Showing the knowledge scores in pre and post-test

Figure no.1 represent the pre test knowledge of staff nurse in which we found that 51(85%) have average, and 9(15%) were of poor, no one having good or excellent knowledge regarding burn care with mean value of 12.76±1.935.

There was an improvement seen in the post test i.e 46 (77%) staff nurses scoring good, 14(23%) were excellent, no body have been found average and poor knowledge regarding first aid management and emergency care of burn patients with mean value of 27.68±3.766 (Figure no. 1).

DISCUSSION:

Nurses play an important role in providing care in emergency condition. The present study was under taken to see the effectiveness of planed teaching program on knowledge regarding first aid management and emergency care of burn among the staff nurses.

In the present study 90% female staff nurse while 10% male staff nurses were participant. Within those staff nurse only 24(40%) attended program regarding emergency care of burn patients and remaining 36(60%) have not attended any program regarding this. In our study there was 45(75%) having total professional experience of up to 5 year while 15(25%) having experience of more than 5 years.

A study conducted by Ashok Kumar reported that 82% were female nursing officials while 18% of the participants of the workshop were male nursing officials. 39.1% had ˃10 year’s professional experience⁵. Aminoroaia M reported in her study, 31.7% were male and 68.3% were female participants. And About 58.7% of nurses had ≥ 10-year work experience⁶.

The findings of the current study revealed that the mean knowledge score of the participants before starting the teaching program i.e. pre test knowledge of staff was 12.76±1.935 and it improved to 27.68±3.766 i.e. post test score, which is consistence with the study of Ashok Kumar et.al⁵, and also with the study of Pasyar et al.⁷. Simpson. S. et. al showed that the mean post-test level of knowledge is significantly higher than the mean pre-test knowledge score that is 17.6 in pre-test and 24.7 in post-test⁸. J.C.Frank conducted his study on auto driver and showed that the majority 33(66%) had adequate knowledge and 17(34%) had moderately adequate knowledge and 40(80%) had positive attitude and 10 (20%) had neutral attitude after the post test⁹.

Kumar A conduct a quasi experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching program on knowledge of staff nurses regarding management of patients with fluid and electrolyte imbalance at Bangluru. Results showed that there was significant improvement in the knowledge score of the participants. (p<0.001)¹⁰. Sabeghi H et al showed that continuing education programs resulted in an increase in nurses‟ knowledge, attitude, and practice¹¹. A quasi-experimental study on evaluation of the effect of nursing educational programs among nurses in hospitals in China done by Huang et al and reported an improvement in nurses‟ knowledge, practice, and behavior after education, which is consistent with this study¹².

This study showed that there is no significant association with nurse’s gender, age and qualification. This result agrees with result done by Ali A. A. Sudani et al¹³. There was significant increase in the knowledge score in all categories of professional experience of participant this was also revealed by Ashok Kumar et al⁵.

Some studies showed that if educational programs are based on nurses‟ needs assessment and are conducted purposefully in the form of workshops, the educations can notably affect nurses‟ knowledge, attitude, and skills ¹⁴. Several studies showed the weakness in nurses‟ knowledge in contexts of nursing cares as well as lack of fulfillment of determinant and important needs concerning administration of professional duties^15,16. Renuka K showed in her study that there was increased in the level of knowledge among the mothers after structured teaching programme¹⁷. P. Yasodha e. al. showed that, there is a difference in knowledge level of primary school teachers before and after the education¹⁸. Sasikala. A stated that that multimodal package on first aid management of head injury had a significant increase in the knowledge and practice of Traffic Police in the experimental group¹⁹.

Brady and Hyde stated that giving nurses the knowledge and preparation for continuing education is essential. In this direction, detection of educational needs and provision of needed facilities is the first step to fix the defects and improve quality of education. Therefore, the role of continuing education as a basic need for nurses‟ adaptation with progressive and rapid scientific changes is essential²⁰. Arjun Kumawat et.al. suggested that the professional drivers had inadequate knowledge and practice score regarding First Aid and it can be effectively improved by a well designed training program, which in turn might help saving many lives of accident victims²¹. The study of Preeti Hooda et. al. findings revealed that information education communication program given to subjects regarding first aid management of accidents helped to enhance the knowledge of subjects²².

There is substantial decrease in cost, morbidity, and mortality due to educational programs. So these programmers should be regularly, updated in view of changing knowledge and work practices²³. Shambhavi et. al. stated that planned teaching programme is an effective teaching strategy to improve the knowledge on first aid management of selected emergencies among school teachers²⁴.

CONCLUSION:

There was statistical improvement seen after teaching program which is not affected by gender, age and educational qualification. This was slightly affected by professional experience. Thus it was told that promotion of nurses‟ knowledge notably affected by educational session. With regard to nurses‟ satisfaction with the workshop that was held, designing and organizing educational workshops based on constant needs assessment is suggested for promotion of nursing cares

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Received on 14.12.2021 Modified on 17.05.2022

Asian J. Nursing Education and Research. 2022; 12(4):391-394.

DOI: 10.52711/2349-2996.2022.00082