International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health 838 2019 | Vol 8 | Issue 10 Effectiveness of first-aid training on school children of urban area of Sambalpur District, Odisha Prakash Chandra Panda 1 , Smita Kumari Panda 2 , Shilpa Karir 2 , Aliva Patra 2 1 Department of Pediatrics, Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Science and Research, Burla, Odisha, India, 2 Department of Community Medicine, Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Science And Research, Burla, Odisha, India Correspondence to: Smita Kumari Panda, E-mail: smitavss@yahoo.co.in Received: June 09, 2019; Accepted: July 24, 2019 INTRODUCTION The national first-aid science advisory board defined first aid as the assessment and interventions that can be performed by a by stander (or by the victim) immediately with minimal or no medical equipment. [1] Proper early measures may be instrumental in saving life and ensuring a better and more rapid recovery. Often, the first action taken for the management Access this article online Website: http://www.ijmsph.com Quick Response code DOI: 10.5455/ijmsph.2019.0616824072019 of injuries and common illness decides the future course of disease and complication rates. First aid is usually seen to be helpful in some of the very common injuries such as simple cut or wound, sprains, snakebite, electric shock, burns, and dog bite. First aid includes the basic steps to be followed in case of an injury before seeking professional medical help. In some inaccessible and remote areas where medical help is difficult to obtain immediately following an injury, first aid plays an important role in saving the life of the victim. However, to administer correct first-aid management, basic training needs to be acquired from experts. Otherwise, wrongly administered first aid can inadvertently lead to harmful consequences. Thus, education in first aid should be universal: Everyone can learn first aid and everyone should. [1] Background: Delay in accessing appropriate medical care and/or lack of knowledge regarding treatment results in the death of the injured which can be avoided by immediate resuscitation measures. First aid, as the name implies, is the first care given to a victim of an accident, injury, or sudden illness, before the provision of advanced medical care. First aid should be aimed to preserve life, promote recovery, and prevent worsening of the victim’s condition. Objectives: The present study was aimed to assess the knowledge of school students regarding first-aid management and to evaluate the effectiveness of education on selected first-aid measures among school students. Materials and Methods: A total of 95 students of 6 th , 7 th , and 8 th standard students were given a self-administered questionnaire for assessing their baseline knowledge about management of common injuries followed by educational intervention. Post-intervention evaluation of their knowledge acquisition was done after 10 days with the same questionnaire. Results: The objective of providing knowledge was accomplished with maximum students retaining knowledge shown as per the percentage increase in post-test scores. The maximum increase was seen in epistaxis (65.26%), head injury (44.21%), choking (42.11%), snakebite (52.94%), and dog bite (42.11%) which signifies less number of students had knowledge about these first-aid measures. Paired t-test showed a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-education scores. Conclusion: Inculcating first-aid training in the school curriculum can be a fruitful investment in ensuring proper and timely management of illnesses and injuries. KEY WORDS: First Aid; Epistaxis; Resuscitation ABSTRACT International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health Online 2019. © 2019 Smita Kumari Panda, et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. Research Article