Assessment of Knowledge Attitude and Practice of Residents About Pre Hospital Care in Addis Ababa
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: In Ethiopia pre hospital care is not well developed. Apart from some
governmental and non-governmental institutions, the pre hospital care is not well known by the
community
Objective to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of residents about pre hospital care
In Addis Ababa
Methodology: household based cross sectional study was conducted using multi stage random
sampling technique from March to April, 2014. The data was collected through structured self-
administered questionnaire and interviewing technique among 422 participants. Data was
entered, analyzed, and interpreted by using SPSS Software version20.
Result: The findings of this study shows that majority of the respondents 364 (86.3%) knew the
presence of pre hospital care, most respondents 405(96%) believed that pre hospital care is
important and 160 (37.9%) individuals had encountered in different levels of pre hospital care
provision. 411(97.4%) respondents believed that pre hospital care should be strengthened by
increasing number of ambulances (23.7%), by training health professionals (18.7%), by teaching
the community about pre hospital care (26.1%) and a combination of the above methods
(31.5%). Regarding the assessment of their practice the common care givers during mass
casualty were bystanders 102(24.2%) and the least care givers were paramedics being
18(4.2%).The common emergent problems that occurred in Addis Ababa fall down accident
72(29.2%) and followed by road traffic accident 59(24.1%).
Conclusion: Knowledge, Attitude and Practice investigations provide helpful insight into the level of
understanding and utilization of services within the community .The findings show that high
proportions of respondents have good knowledge (76.5%) and, positive attitude (69.9%) of pre
hospital care, however, less than half of them have practiced pre hospital care in mass casualty.
Unfortunately 58.8% and 65.2% of the respondents did not know the phone number of Red Cross and
fire & emergency dispatch center respectively.
Recommendation: The city administration should teach the community to improve awareness about the
advantages of pre hospital care, ambulance transportation and early visit to a hospital so as to decrease
morbidity and mortality of trauma patients. The Red Cross and fire and emergency dispatch center
should advertise their phone number to the public and respond immediately to community call and
formulate a decision with policy makers about safe and rapid transportation despite the barriers
Concerned authorities should be concerned about increasing the number of paramedics and the
available Paramedics should actively participate in mass casualty incidents. Based on this study no
identified barriers about pre hospital care so that there should be another study by taking other
variables
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Keywords
Pre Hospital Care