Abstract
Burn-related injuries are prevalent, serious, and preventable trauma causing significant morbidity and mortality. Burn first aid is an important and unfortunately neglected practice that can reduce these unwanted consequences. It is not well studied in Saudi Arabia with a representative sample size across its regions. The objective of this study is to determine the practice of first aid and measure the knowledge of burns and burns-related nutrition.
Data have been collected using an online questionnaire, which has been distributed to the Saudi general population and it included socioeconomic and biographical data, burn first aid knowledge and practice, and burn-related nutrition. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.
A total of 2437 people were enrolled in this study. Most of the respondents were females (59.5%). The majority of participants from eastern, central, and western region. It was found that the mean score of knowledge was 7.34 (SD 2.23) out of 16 points. Of these numbers, 51.8% were classified as negative knowledge, 47.5% were classified into neutral and only 0.7% were classified into positive knowledge. For practices, the mean score was 3.62 (SD 2.44) out of 9 points with 61.9% were classified into poor practices, 31.9% were of moderate practices and 6.2% were classified into good practices. Regarding results of burn first aid knowledge, correct answers varies significantly between questions, particularly questions containing clinical scenarios showing obvious defect in knowledge. In addition, our respondents showed varying degrees of knowledge regarding the nutritional aspect of burn healing process.
Our study suggests that there is a significant lack of knowledge and practice of burns first aid and burn-related nutrition. Thus, burn first aid courses, training, and awareness campaigns are must in order to improve the knowledge among Saudi general population.