The Effect of Buddy Aid Education in Crisis on Knowledge, Attitude and Performance of Soldiers

Our country is exposed to all kinds of natural and man-made hazards. The armed forces with the ability of regional distribution and quick action, are one of the first organizations to become present in crisis. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the effect of buddy aid education on the knowledge, attitude, and performance of soldiers.

The present study is an experimental and two-group study conducted in 2017. Two units from which settled in Khorramabad were randomly allocated to two experimental and comparison groups. 25 soldiers from each group (experimental and comparison) were selected by simple random sampling. The researcher held six two-hour sessions of buddy aid education in the form of combination training for the experimental group. No intervention was performed by the researcher for the comparison group and like the previous procedure, the training of the comparison group was carried out by lecture method. Knowledge and attitude questionnaires and 5 valid and reliable researcher-made checklists were used to collect data. Questionnaires and checklists were completed before and one week after the intervention by the research units in both experimental and comparison groups. Fisher's test, independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test were used to analyze the data.

There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic characteristics (P>0.05). Besides, there was no significant difference between the two groups in knowledge, attitude and practice before the intervention (P>0.05). After the educational intervention, there was a significant difference between the two experimental and comparison groups in the mean scores of the knowledge areas and the 5 cases of performance (fracture care, bleeding control, transportation of the injured by firefighting procedures, stick and crawl methods) (P>0.05) so that the test group score was higher in both knowledge and performance. There was no significant difference between the two experimental and comparison groups in the attitude (P>0.05).

Given the important and wide role of armed forces in crisis, training of duty personnel through a coherent training program and holding of training classes with an emphasis on practical training is recommended.