Stop the Bleed

As part of the national Stop the Bleed campaign in the United States, more than a million people have received bleeding control training through the work of many organizations. These public and professional educational experiences are ideally grounded in health sciences, clinical, and educational evidence to be most effective. However, there is currently no standard tool for evaluating the educational quality of these programs. We developed and validated the Stop the Bleed Education Assessment Tool (SBEAT) to provide a standard measure of life-threatening bleeding educational programs knowledge learning outcomes to aid in evaluation and development of this public health program. The SBEAT development included medical, clinical, and educational experts to derive and validate learning outcomes. Specific item writing incorporated focus groups for input on language and then pilot testing before a full community pilot test established a data set, for which a Rasch methodology was applied. The resulting tool used 34 items embedded in 19 survey questions, with item separation statistic of 5.56 (0.97 reliability) and person separation statistic of 2.09 (0.81 reliability) for 171 persons. Overall, the Cronbach Alpha (KR-20) person score "test reliability" equaled 0.85 (SEM = 2.24). The SBEAT project establishes a standardized assessment tool to evaluate the cognitive aspects of first aid for life threatening bleeding. Comparison of outcomes from different teaching styles and methods will allow for the development of best practices for future bleeding control education and help organizations demonstrate value to learners, funders, and policy makers, and advance health sciences education. SBEAT offers a measure for which educational efficiency and efficacy can be judged within a larger effort to prepare people for personal emergencies or large-scale disasters.

Traumatic injuries remain the leading cause of death for those under the age of 44 years old. Nearly a third of those who die from trauma do so from bleeding. Reducing death from severe bleeding requires training in the recognition and treatment of life-threatening bleeding, as well as programs to ensure immediate access to bleeding control resources. The Stop the Bleed (STB) initiative seeks to educate and empower people to be immediate responders and provide control of life-threatening bleeding until emergency medical services arrive. Well-planned and implemented STB programs will help ensure program effectiveness, minimize variability, and provide long-term sustainment. Comprehensive STB programs foster consistency, promote access to bleeding control education, contain a framework to guide the acquisition and placement of equipment, and promote the use of these resources at the time of a bleeding emergency. We leveraged the expertise and experience of the Stop the Bleed Education Consortium to create a resource document to help inform and guide STB program developers and implementers on the key areas for consideration when crafting strategy. These areas include (1) equipment selection, (2) logistics and kit placement, (3) educational program accessibility and implementation, and (4) program oversight, facilitation, and administration.