Fears Related to Blood-Injection-Injury Inhibit Bystanders from Giving First Aid

Introduction: Prehospital emergency care is critical to saving lives. Facilitating bystander involvement and increasing the likelihood that people will provide first aid can reduce the time to treatment and increase the chances of survival and recovery. One possible solution to increasing people's willingness to provide first aid is to identify the barriers that may prevent them from doing so. One such barrier could be Blood Injury Injection (BII) phobia, which is a very common condition with up to 20% of people experiencing mild to severe fear and 3-5% experiencing phobic levels of fear. Methods: In the absence of a psychometrically sound measure of the probability of giving first aid, we developed a brief six-item questionnaire (Probability of Giving First-aid Scale; PGFAS) and tested its performance with the Polytomous Rasch Model. We demonstrated that the questionnaire had adequate reliability and validity. We then used the PGFAS measure to test how anxiety and disgust sensitivity related to BII phobia may act as barriers to providing medical assistance. Results: Our results show that fear of injection and blood draw, blood and mutilation significantly reduced the likelihood of giving first aid. In contrast, fear of sharp objects, medical examinations, people showing symptoms of illnesses and disgust sensitivity, and fear of contamination did not have a significant effect. Conclusion: In conclusion, the PGFAS could be a useful as a screening tool to identify people who are less likely to help. It may also be used to assess the effectiveness of first aid training, but this was not addressed in this study. Our results emphasize the importance of preparing the person who is to give first aid, and of incorporating activities that support helper identity into training that teaches technical knowledge.