Knowledge of nursery workers about first aid measures with children before and after active training

Abstract

Objective: to identify changes in the knowledge of nursery workers after active educational intervention in first aid measures with children in the school environment. Method: a quasi-experimental study of the before and after type with a single comparison group composed of 134 workers from the six public nursery centers in a Brazilian municipality, through voluntary adherence offered to the entire study population. First aid training consisted of 16 hours/class and used active learning methods. A closed questionnaire with nine simulated situations assessed the knowledge before and after the intervention. The R Core Team 2020 software was used in the analysis, and a significance level of 5% and the McNemar non-parametric test were used for the purpose of the intervention. Results: there was a statistically significant increase in correct answers after training in the following subjects: cardiorespiratory arrest; convulsion; choking; electric shock; trauma, fall; bleeding, and poisoning. The main differences in terms of correct answers before and after were found for choking (77.6% to 98.5%), trauma (75.3% to 94.7%), poisoning by ingestion (70.8% to 86.5%), and convulsion (87.3% to 98.5%). Conclusions: the training expanded the knowledge about all the themes, with the exception of burns (p = 0.248). The socio-cultural context must be considered, as well as the workload distributed between theory and practices. Nurses can be the reference professionals to teach such courses.