Basic First Aid Knowledge Levels of Students of the Vocational School of Health Services

BACKGROUND/AIMS In this descriptive study, our aim was to evaluate the knowledge on basic first aid of students attending the Vocational School of Health Services. MATERIALS and METHODS The study group consisted of 296 students in 23 departments of the Vocational School of Health Services. A total of 31 questions administered via the Students Introductory Information Form and Basic First Aid Questionnaire were answered by students who agreed to participate voluntarily in the research. The analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 13.0 (IBM Corp.; Armonk, NY, USA) package program in the computer environment with a p-value <0.05 determining the significance level. RESULTS It has been determined that 88.9% of the students had previously received basic education on first aid, and 50% of the students believed that their knowledge in this area was sufficient. The basic first aid knowledge score of the students was calculated as 76.03. The most correctly answered question was regarding the definition of basic first aid, while the least correctly answered question was on the chest compression rates. CONCLUSION In addition to theoretical courses, if time spent practicing with models in applied courses is not sufficient; it can prevent the students from reinforcing their knowledge. However, in addition to applications during the internship training, professional practice can help the students to acquire the required knowledge.