Citation

Heard CL, Pearce JM, Rogers MB. Disasters 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Professor of Behavioural Science and Security, King's College London.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12374

PMID

31232480

Abstract

While the public can play a vital role in saving lives during emergencies, intervention is only effective if people have the skills, confidence and willingness to help. This review employed a five-stage framework to systematically analyse first aid and emergency helping literature from 22 countries (predominately in Europe, Australasia or the USA). 54 articles were included in the review and investigated public first-aid knowledge and uptake of first-aid training (40), public confidence in first-aid skills or willingness to help during an emergency (21); and barriers/enablers to learning first aid and/or delivering first aid in an emergency (25).

FINDINGS identifying high levels of perceived knowledge/confidence and willingness to help supports the contention that the public can play a vital role during an emergency. However, findings identifying low uptake levels, low tested skill-specific knowledge, along with barriers to learning first aid and helping suggest a first-aid training landscape in need of improvement. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Emergency Helping; First-Aid Training; Lay Bystanders