Teachers' Knowledge and First Aid Care of Febrile Convulsion in Nursing and Primary Schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area, Ibadan

 

                                        ABSTRACT

Febrile convulsions (FC) are seizures brought on by a fever in infants or small children. It is a major cause of medical emergency in children age 6 months to 6 years. Studies focusing on teachers’ first aid care to children with FC are limited in Nigeria, yet children spend substantial time under teachers’ care. This study was conducted to assess teachers’ knowledge and first aid care in nursery and primary schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area, Nigeria.

This was a cross-sectional study involving a two-stage sampling method to select 402 teachers from 47 private and 10 public schools. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge of FC, and first aid care. Knowledge was measured with a 10-item scale and categorized as good (>4) and poor (≤4). First aid care was assessed as appropriate or inappropriate. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test.

Mean age of respondents was 35.4±10.6 years. Only 30.6% of respondents had good knowledge of FC. Forty-one percent of respondents had witnessed a child convulse in school. Of these, 114 (69.1%) gave inappropriate care such as putting a spoon into the child’s mouth (28.1%). More male (73.5%) than female (66.7%) and more teachers with ≤5 years (76.5%) teaching experience compared to those with 6-10 years (65.6%) and those with ≤11 years (64.2%) experience gave inappropriate first aid care. Sixty-eighty percent of respondents who had good knowledge of FC compared with 69.1% who had poor knowledge of FC gave inappropriate first aid care.

Teachers’ knowledge of febrile convulsion was poor. Most teachers gave inappropriate first aid care to children who had febrile convulsion in the school. There is the need to design intervention programmes targeted at improving knowledge and appropriate first aid care for febrile convulsion.

Word count: 295