Measurement of the first aid knowledge level of the medical representatives traveling through traffic: Ankara case

The study was planned and carried out in order to find out the information level of the medical representatives. The population of the study is comprised of medical representatives employed in firms located in Ankara; the sample is the voluntary participants who wanted to take part in the study.The questionnaire form developed by the researcher was administered to the participants face to face; data collected were evaluated through SPPS 15 software and put into tables. In the evaluation of the data collected number, percentage, Anova, Kruskalwallis tests were employed to perform statistical interpretations.32% of the medical representatives are female, 68% male, 60.6% of the representatives are between 21-30 years of age. 63.3% of the participants are employed for 1-5, 51.3% of the participants have no prior work experience. Besides, 84.3% of the participants state they are satisfied with their job, 34.7% drive 101-200 kilometers a day, 90.4% travel by car, 81.3% have witnessed traffic accidents. 64.1% of the participants were unable to perform first aid during the accident, 62.7% have not received first aid training, and 88% have got no certificate.The level of first aid knowledge was found out to be insufficient. While there is no statistical relationship between age, education, gender, marital status, duration of employment and first aid knowledge score (p>0.05), there is a statistical relationship when it comes to first aid certificate (p<0.05).In conclusion, first aid knowledge is an important fact that deals with all aspects of the society. Hence, it is of vital importance that everybody should receive first aid training to save lives.