THE EFFECT OF A NURSING INTERVENTION (BASIC AID TRAINING) ON LATCHKEY VS. SUPERVISED CHILDREN'S STRESS AND KNOWLEDGE OF FIRST AID.
Contributors: Catholic University of America.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Education.; Education, Health.
Description: This study's purpose was to compare the effect of a nursing intervention, the teaching of Basic Aid Training (BAT), on the measured stress and knowledge of first aid of latchkey and adult-supervised children. Selye's theory (1980), which infers that stress can be reduced by providing information, was accepted as a basis for the study. It was proposed that the BAT course (American Red Cross) would increase knowledge of first aid and reduce the levels of stress experienced by latchkey children, who are subject to added stressors (Long & Long, 1983).

Subjects were fourth-grade parochial school children in a mid-Atlantic metropolitan area. The study employed a pretest/posttest control group design, randomly assigning 44 latchkey children and 182 adult-supervised children to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received six hours of BAT instruction; the control group, six hours of geography enrichment instruction.

Knowledge of first aid was measured by an investigator developed BAT Test. Stress was measured by the Palmar Sweat Index (PSI) (Thomson & Sutarman, 1953) and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) (Spielberger et al., 1973). Demographic data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Hypotheses were tested at the.05 level of significance. Between group differences were evaluated by Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), with pretest, mental maturity score (Developing Cognitive Abilities Test), and social status (Hollingshead, 1975) as covariates.

Findings showed a significant increase in knowledge of first aid for all children and for the subgroups of latchkey and adult-supervised children in the experimental group. The PSI showed a significant decrease in stress in all children and in the subgroup of adult-supervised children in the experimental group vs. the control group. The STAIC Trait showed a significant decrease in stress in all children and in the subgroup of latchkey children in the experimental group vs. the control group. The STAIC State did not show a significant decrease in stress in any children when comparing experimental to control group.

Summarizing, children who received BAT showed a significant increase in knowledge of first aid and decrease in stress. Significant findings support future nursing intervention of teaching first aid.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: B, page: 5230.

Thesis (D.N.SC.)--THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, 1989.

School code: 0043.