This review examines the breadth of first aid training delivered to school students and the components that are age appropriate to adolescents.
Eligible studies included school-based first aid interventions targeting students aged between 10 and 18 years. Online databases were searched, for peer-reviewed publications available as at August 2014.
A total of 20 journal articles were relevant to the review. Research supported programs with longer durations (3 hours or more). Most programs taught resuscitation alone and few included content that was context-specific and relevant to the target group. The training experience of the facilitator did not appear to impact on student outcomes. Incorporating both practical and didactic components was found to be an important factor in delivering material and facilitating the retention of knowledge. Educational resources and facilitator training were found to be common features of effective programs.
The review supports first aid in school curriculum and provides details of key components pertinent to design of school-based first aid programs. The findings suggest that first aid training may have benefits wider than the uptake and retention of knowledge and skills. There is a need for future research, particularly randomized controlled trials to aid in identifying best practice approaches.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 August 2025.
All research outputs
#10,204,206
of 33,503,100 outputs
Outputs from Journal of School Health
#740
of 1,871 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#106,879
of 333,507 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of School Health
#8
of 18 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,503,100 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,871 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.1. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 59% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,507 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 18 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 55% of its contemporaries.
