The importance of elderly people knowing basic first-aid measures

Dolenc Šparovec, Eva (author), Slabe, Damjan (author), Eržen, Ivan (author), Kovačič, Uroš (author)

Background: In the event of a sudden illness or injury, elderly individuals are often dependent on self-help and mutual assistance from partners. With poor access to medical services during natural and other disasters, the importance of first aid knowledge of elderly individuals increases even more. We assessed the opinions of different generations of Slovenian population regarding the importance of knowing the basic first aid measures. In addition, we aimed to examine the knowledge of first aid in the most common emergencies that threaten elderly people's health and lives, focusing on the knowledge of elderly. Methods: A structured questionnaire was conducted with a representative Slovenian adult population (n = 1079). Statistically significant differences in average ratings of the importance of first aid knowledge were compared among different age groups with one-way ANOVA followed by a post hoc test. Significant differences in percentages of correct answers in particular cases of health conditions between different age groups were determined using the χ 2 test followed by post hoc tests. Results: Slovenes are well aware of the importance of first aid knowledge and feel personally responsible for acquiring this knowledge. The general opinion is that older retirees need less first aid knowledge than individuals in younger populations. We found a high level of knowledge about symptoms and first aid measures for some of the most common health conditions that occur in old age. The level of knowledge in the group of the oldest respondents was comparable with that of younger age groups. However, their recognition of health conditions was also somewhat worse, especially when recognising the symptoms and signs of hypoglycaemia and heart attack. Most of the tested knowledge did not depend on a person's age but on the time since that person was last educated in first aid. Conclusions: The knowledge of people older than 80 years is somewhat poorer than that in the younger population, mainly because too much time has passed since they were last educated in first aid. Public awareness of first aid needs to be increased and appropriate guidelines should be given with a focus on the elderly population.

• Language: English
• Keywords: hypoglycaemia, cardiac arrest, stroke
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: ZF - Faculty of Health Sciences; MF - Faculty of Medicine
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 14.07.2022
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: 8 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 22, iss. 1, art. 128
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-138366
• UDC: 616-083.98
• ISSN on article: 1471-227X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12873-022-00675-9
• COBISS.SI-ID: 115487747
• Publication date in RUL: 18.07.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: BMC emergency medicine
• Shortened title: BMC Emerg Med
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• ISSN: 1471-227X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2437140

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 18.07.2022

Secondary language

• Language: Undetermined
• Keywords: hipoglikemija, srčni zastoj, možganska kap