Knowledge and attitude of basic life support (BLS) among school teachers in Hebron, Palestine

Background: Patients in all settings fully expect that they will be resuscitated if they have a cardiac arrest. It is therefore necessary to increase the number of qualified people, including school teachers and students who can play a vital role in performing basic and advanced cardiac life support at the scene of a medical emergency. Since life threatening events, such as cardiac arrest, must be responded to within six minutes, the retention of skills becomes a key concern in all urgent cases. The purpose of this study was to assess the existing knowledge of BLS among primary and secondary school teachers in Hebron, Palestine.Methods: After approval from Institute Ethical Committee and informed consent from the participant, the present study was conducted among primary and secondary school teachers. A self-administered questionnaire based on knowledge and attitude of BLS was used to collect data.Results: In general, only 42.5%of school teachers knew about CPR, but 57.5% had no previous information about CPR. Sources of information about CPR included television (26.5%), nurses and Drs (25.8), and the Internet (18.7%). Approximately 53% agreed that CPR training courses should be mandatory. Only 18.1% of teachers didn’t know the contact numbers for emergency services.Conclusions: This study has highlighted a critical issue that a majority of school teachers have limited knowledge about CPR. We recommend the mandatory implementation of CPR and basic life-support training for all school teachers across Palestine, and the need for incorporation of the BLS teaching into the Palestinian schools’ curricula without delay

Factors Affect Patients Satisfaction in Emergency Departments in Palestine

Background: Emergency care can make an important contribution to reduce avoidable deaths and disabilities. Assessing health care quality and improving patient satisfaction have become a global health-related issue, particularly among health care suppliers and customers of health care due to increase of customers’ knowledge and awareness regarding health care services. Patient satisfaction is a patient’s perception of care received compared with the care expected. Patient satisfaction was considered as an essential indicators of emergency care. Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional design was utilized in this study. All patients above 10 years who attended private and governmental hospitals in west bank for all potential health conditions were recruited (n=1150 patients). The Arabic version of the self-administered questionnaire of "Brief Emergency Department Patient Satisfaction Scale (BEPSS)" was used. Results: The majority of the subjects was men in (21-39) year old category, and were living in villages. More than half of the subjects were attendees of ED in private hospitals during night shifts. Duration of subjects’ waiting to see physicians and nurses was less than 15 min. Subjects were satisfied highly as ranked ordered in for different items in the BEPSS scale domains. There were significant differences between groups on BEPSS related to educational level and place of resident (F=6.14, p=≤0.00) and (F=3.50, p=0.03) respectively. Conclusion: This study shown that overall patients’ satisfaction score was 3.77 over 5 and this reflect an acceptable level of patients satisfaction Emergency hospital services and healthcare providers in Palestine. Keywords: Emergency Department (ED), Palestine, Patients Satisfaction.