G105(P) Youth violence: an educational solution?

Abstract

Background Violent/knife crime remains a significant public health challenge in the UK and Europe. Young people are disproportionately affected. Both physical injury in the short term and long term psychiatric conditions such as behavioural problems, post traumatic stress disorder, and substance misuse can result.1 Assault with a sharp instrument accounted for 3849 UK admissions to hospital last year2 and so interventions which can reduce levels of violent crime and improve outcomes of victims of violent crimes are needed. StreetDoctors is a registered charity where basic life support and haemorrhage control sessions are taught to at risk young people in order to reduce mortality and morbidity from violent crimes. Since 2008 StreetDoctors has grown year on year to the point of expanding to 13 universities. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the medical student volunteers we have taught well above 2500 young people ages 12-18. Method A national approach was used to survey whether the young people were benefitting from our teaching. A pre and post teaching questionnaire was filled out by the young people to assess prior knowledge and knowledge gained Results There was an Increase of 14.75% of young people knowing how to deal with someone who is passed out but breathing and an increase of 35.62% of young people knowing what to do when they found someone bleeding. A mean increase of 0.86 and of 0.92 points on a 1-10 scale answering the questions "how likely are you to help someone who's been stabbed/ is unconscious" respectively was also found. Discussion This is the first time data has been collected across the country and our results show that the basic life support and haemorrhage control teaching we provide is having a positive impact on both the knowledge and willingness to help of the young people.