Knowledge and attitude concerning first aid and community education strategies among university student volunteers of Iranian Red Crescent's Society, 2007

First aid education constitutes a major priority area for the Iranian Red Crescent. The present study assesses student volunteer's knowledge of first aid procedures and their attitudes concerning strategies for community education. This survey involved 5287 volunteers selected by simple random sampling in 6 different provinces of Iran. Statistical analysis, based on a complex sampling design, was performed with the Stata 8.0 software package. At the time of the study, 3736 subjects (63.8%) were members of the Red Crescent and the remaining students worked in the Freelance section. A total of 3736 students (70.6%) had attended the Red Crescent's first aid training courses. The mean knowledge score of the sample was estimated at 8.53 out of a maximum of 18 (CI0.95 = 7.36-9.46), with only 773 subjects (14.6%) showing a high level of knowledge. Only previous training showed a statistically significant relationship with the knowledge score (p=0.01). The mean score in the attitude section was 34.73 out of a maximum of 45 (CI0.95 = 33.57-37.33), and it was found to be related to previous training (p = 0.01) and higher economic status (p = 0.01). Our research showed that the Red Crescent must extend the coverage of its first aid training programs targeted at the student volunteers. An effective way to ensure an adequate level of knowledge in volunteers would be to organize regular continuing education programs adapted to the needs of different target groups.