Construction and Implementation of First Aid Courses in Rural Populations: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Colombia has been through five decades of civil war and unrest between the state and guerrilla groups and is currently in the process of healing. Several measures have been taken to aid the peace process, one of them being the Colombian-Norwegian cooperation Rural Health for Peace (RHfP) that aims to strengthen primary health care (PHC) in the areas most afflicted by the war. A previous study done by Søndenå (verbal communication, not yet published) have shown that even though there is no state funded health care in a rural village in Colombia, the inhabitants there make up their own kind of “micro healthcare” with the resources they have. The need for a first aid course was mentioned during the interviews Søndenå carried out. There is a strong local will to act, so there is a potential for targeted training to further enhance learning in regard to health. The purpose of this thesis is thus to perform a literature search to explore what a first aid course in a rural setting could and should contain.