Consciousness survey among public health nurses in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture on airway foreign substances

Abstract

Periodic health check-up for infants is effective to enlighten the awareness of accidents caused by foreign bodies in the airways of infants. We administered a questionnaire survey to 110 public health nurses in public health centers in 29 cities/towns in Mie Prefecture and 29 representatives of individual public health centers in the cities/towns, who were engaged in health check-ups, regarding their knowledge of airway foreign bodies, actual enlightenment upon health check-ups, and demands for enlightenment. In survey A, with the public health nurses, it was suggested that they had sufficient knowledge about airway foreign bodies, but confused substances with causal foreign bodies of accidental ingestion. The rates of enlightenment upon health check-ups were low for suffocation (58.2%) and accidents caused by dried beans (34.5%). In survey B, with the representatives of public health centers in individual cities/towns, the representatives responded with higher rates of enlightenment about suffocation (69.0%) and accidents caused by dried beans (51.7%) than those in survey A, suggesting there were differences in the actual learning situations. It was found that public health nurses rarely had the opportunities to learn about airway foreign bodies (6.9%) and hoped to have a new enlightenment tool. The knowledge and enlightenment methods should be standardized among public health centers/public health nurses, and new enlightenment tools should be prepared to address this discrepancy.