Critical Review of Japanese Disaster Medical Education for Citizens: Exploring the Method of Medutainment

Abstract

Various attempts have been made to disseminate first aid treatment related to disaster medicine to the public. More specifically, employees of fire stations hold seminars and visit schools using textbooks as general practice. However, it is difficult to judge whether attendees are actively involved in them or attending only because they are required to do so. Therefore, a broad survey on books, DVDs, experiential education, and information technology (IT) centering on first aid was conducted using a hierarchical system of ages of intended audience members. This survey was performed to create an IT-based textbook to disseminate to the public first aid techniques that are difficult to learn if low-cost experience-based education is not available. In addition, a new method for “medutainment” (medical edutainment) was studied as a way to teach new disaster medicine guidelines for citizens for medical rescue training.