No PE teacher with up-to-date first aid training is available in one-third of schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic, a study looking at the immediate care of school sport injury has found.
The study, carried out by Belfast doctors Dr Liz Abernethy and Dr Domhnall MacAuley and published yesterday in the medical journal Injury Prevention, also tested the responses of teachers to a number of sports injuries scenarios. One scenario questioned how they would deal with a pupil who collapsed after a race.
Only 64 per cent of teachers selected the correct response - "to check if the child was breathing, if not commence basis life support and send someone to call an ambulance" - in a potentially life-threatening situation.
According to the authors - they are an accident and emergency consultant and a GP with an interest in sports medicine - the purpose of the research was to identify the current state of equipment and the availability of school staff to manage injury in most primary schools. The study of 450 schools found that most experienced less than five sports injuries a month.
Fewer than one in 10 injured pupils required hospital treatment. However, in over one in three schools there was no PE teacher with up-to-date first aid training, and the ratio of pupils to adequately trained teachers ranged from 50:1 to 1,000:1. The lack of access to a suitably trained PE teacher was most notable in smaller schools. Those with appropriately trained teachers also tended to be the schools with portable first aid kits and supervision of pupils. The provision among schools for communication by phone with emergency services also varied considerably. Other scenarios used to treat teachers' responses to sports injury included: what to do if a pupil temporarily lost consciousness after a collision with another pupil; a student hit on the hand with a hockey stick; the collapse of a rugby scrum; and what to do if a child fell 10 feet off a climbing wall. In general, the response to these of PE teachers and coaches was reassuring, with more than 90 per cent indicating they would carry out appropriate first aid treatment.
Some 93 per cent of schools' games staff indicated they would be interested in attending a sporting first aid workshop. However, those teachers who appeared to need the training most were the least interested in participating in a workshop. Previous studies of injuries in people aged 11-18 have shown that 62 per cent occur during organised sport, with a further 20 per cent happening during PE class.
A quarter of all school injuries are serious, involving a fracture, dislocation or brain injury. The authors concluded that sports injury training is less than optimal.
"School sport must be safe and enjoyable if we are to implement current public health policy in promoting physical activity," they said.