First aid in acute stroke : introducing a concept of first action to laypersons.
OBJECTIVE
First aid training is well established to teach the public how to recognize a medical emergency and take appropriate action. Though it is now handled as a high priority emergency stroke is not among the main topics of first aid. We investigated if first aid training may be useful for enhancing stroke awareness.


METHODS
We developed a 15-20 minute teaching session about stroke as an emergency including signs and symptoms and first hands-on measures. The session was integrated in standard first aid training of the St John Ambulance of Germany and participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding their knowledge about stroke. Subjects were questioned before the stroke lesson and again at the end of the training.


RESULTS
532 participants of the training responded to the questionnaire (mean age 28.6 years, 53.6% male). There was a significant increase in proportion of subjects correctly defining what stroke is (28.4% vs. 69.9%, p < 0,001) and in the mean number of stroke symptoms listed (1.52 vs. 3.35, p < 0,001) by the participants. The number of participants unable to list at least 1 symptom decreased significantly (12.8 vs. 3.6%, p<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
In our study a teaching lesson integrated in first aid training was effective in improving stroke knowledge of participants. First aid training should be used for stroke information complementary to other activities like mass media campaigns as it is effective, could reach younger people that are not primarily interested in stroke and provides connections to other health topics.
Handschu
René
R
Department of Neurology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen-Nuremberg Stroke Unit, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054, Erlangen, Germany. rene.handschu@neuro.med.uni-erlangen.de
Reitmayer
Michael
M
Raschick
Marlitt
M
Erbguth
Frank
F
Neundörfer
Bernhard
B
Babjar
Elisabeth
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D005392:First Aid; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D020521:Stroke / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires