Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of first aid amongst minibus drivers, conductors and road traffic police officers in Ndola, Zambia

Abstract

Introduction: Road Traffic accidents are common in Zambia. In spite of this, Zambia has no organized pre-hospital emergency system. The main objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of first aid amongst mini bus drivers, mini bus conductors and road traffic police officers in Ndola, Zambia.Methodology:This was a cross sectional study assessing the knowledge, Attitude and Practice of First Aid amongst mini bus drivers, minibus conductors and Road Traffic Police Officers in Ndola, Zambia with a sample size of 220.From the questionnaires ,data was entered using Microsoft excel and exported to SPSS version 21.0 for analysisResults:There were 220 respondents in this study. Mini bus drivers 110(50%) constituted the majority of respondents .Regarding attitude, 198(90%) of the respondents had a positive attitude towards first aid and of these 194 (98%) were willing to undertake training in First aid. With respect to Road Traffic Accident (RTA) witnessing, 169 (77%) of the respondents had witnessed a RTA in the previous one year and of these, 106(63%) provided some help to the victims of the RTA. On knowledge assessment with respect level of education, respondents who went up to primary school level of education scored the least with an average score of 37.5% and the average scores for all respondents was 50%. In addition Knowledge score with respect to job title reviewed that Road Traffic Police Officers scored the highest with an average of 54.5%, minibus drivers scored an average of 53.1% while minibus conductors scored an average of 45.2%. With respect to attitude, those with a positive attitude scored an average of 50.4% while those with a negative attitude scored an average of 35.7%.in terms of prior training in life saving skills, only 38(17.3%) of the respondents had prior training. Conclusion: There was inadequate knowledge of first aid, more with minibus conductors and formal training in first aid was lacking in the respondents despite them providing some forms of help to the victims. There was lack of training in life saving skills among respondents and respondents were willing to take lifesaving skills trainings henceforth; formal training is needed for them to provide the correct and effective aid needed.