First Aid Training for Non-Medical Professionals: The Need for Comprehensive Assessments [Response to Letter]

Dear editor

Thank you for your interest in our publication. It is very important for us to know your opinion about our work. In Kazakhstan, training of persons without medical education is carried out in accordance with the Order of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 21814 dated 20.12.2020. The training program includes lectures on topics such as loss of consciousness, bleeding, foreign bodies in the upper respiratory tract, injuries, burns, frostbite, carbon monoxide poisoning, seizures. In addition to discussing theoretical materials, we teach practical skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, immobilization of limbs, evacuation of victims from the scene of an accident, application of bandages, tourniquets to control bleeding, and the Heimlich maneuver using mannequins. At the end of the cycle, we take a practical skills exam followed by the issuance of certificates.

The main limitation of our program is a very short training period, which is only 18 hours (3 days for 6 hours). This makes it significantly difficult to work with each student on an individual level. The experience of our colleagues from foreign countries, with whom we actively cooperate, is indispensable in our work with individuals without medical education. However, it should be taken into account that in these countries, the duration of such training is 40–60 hours, which is significantly more than in Kazakhstan. Therefore, having a limited time resource, we focused our attention on questions on cardiopulmonary resuscitation when surveying trained individuals without medical education, since we considered this practical skill to be the most important for providing emergency care. Our opinion is consistent with the data of the systematic review by Minna S et al,¹ which indicate that the main focus of assessment methods after first aid training should be on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, since the ability to perform this skill and use an automated external defibrillator were the most studied first aid skills. This assessment was based on several standardized measurements.

We conducted an assessment of existing knowledge before the training began and immediately after face-to-face training in the training room. Subsequently, after 6 and 12 months, such an assessment was available only via Google form, due to which contact with a large part of the students was lost.

Your comments are invaluable to us, as they can help us in the future to apply to the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a request to make changes to the duration of the training program in order to increase it. In this case, we will be able to devote more time and attention to other practical skills with a subsequent assessment of the effectiveness of such training.