Pre-hospital care received by injured children less than five years admitted to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Colombo

• Asıl Yazarlar: Gayani Gunawardhana (Yazar), Sampatha Goonewardena (Yazar)
• Materyal Türü: Kitap
• Baskı/Yayın Bilgisi: College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka, 2016-07-01T00:00:00Z.
• Konular: article
• Online Erişim: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 1391-3174; 2579-1451; 10.4038/jccpsl.v21i1.8076
• Keywords: pre hospital care, first aid practices, children below five years, lady ridgeway hospital; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: Journal of the College of Community Physicians, Vol 21, Iss 1, Pp 49-60 (2016)

<p><strong>Objective </strong>To describe the pre-hospital care received by injured children less than five years admitted to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital and associated factors.</p><p><strong>Methods </strong>A hospital based descriptive cross sectional study was carried out at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital accident ward. A sample of 400 pairs consisting of a pre-hospital care giver and child were recruited. Structured pre-tested interviewer administered questionnaire was used for data collection and descriptive analysis was used.</p><p><strong>Results </strong>Mean age of the children and pre hospital care giver was 38 months (SD±13.27) and 32.8 years (SD±5.9) respectively. Majority 90.5% (N=362) of care givers were mothers and only 15.7% of had first aid training. However, most (60.5%) of care givers had good knowledge on first aid. First aid box with basic equipment was available for 56.8% injured children. Majority (59.3%) of children was transported within the golden hour and used three wheelers (57%). Although a majority (87.5%) of care givers had access to communication methods only 21.5% knew the emergency telephone number.</p><p><strong>Conclusions </strong>Correct first aid practice was significantly associated with first aid training of the care giver. Since most injured children were transported by three-wheelers, it is imperative to train three-wheeler drivers about how to transport injured children safely.</p>