Modern Principles and Methods of First Aid for Drowning

Summary. The aim of the study — to review and analyze the scientific literature and current recommendations on first aid (FA) for drowning; based on the results of the analysis, to develop a draft universal algorithm for providing FA in drowning. Study materials and methods. The material for the study comprised international and national guidelines on FA in drowning and articles on the topic of FA in drowning published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The information search was carried out in January 2024 using the Google search engine and bibliographic databases Google Scholar, PubMed, and eLIBRARY.RU. Results of the study and their analysis. Being one of the most common causes of accidental death, drowning is a serious public health problem. Timely and correct provision of FA by incident witnesses significantly reduces the risk of death and disability for the victims. At the same time, the topic of providing FA for drowning has been little touched upon in the domestic scientific literature. There are no uniform guidelines for the Russian Federation on the provision of FA in drowning. Improvement of the organizational basis in Russia for effective provision of FA for drowning requires the development and approval of a unified formal procedure for providing FA for drowning and the establishment of the practice of mass training of the population in modern principles and methods of providing FA for drowning. Based on the results of the analysis of current international guidelines on FA, the proposed universal algorithm for providing FA for drowning, after discussion and agreement by the scientific community, may act as a basic element for creating the formal procedure for providing FA and developing appropriate educational and awareness-raising materials on FA for drowning.