Stop the Bleed Principles Successfully Can Be Taught to Children

Anderson M, Williams R. Bleeding Control Methods for Kids: A Pediatric Approach to the National Education Campaign—A Pilot Program. J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2024; in press.

The ACS Stop the Bleed program, launched by the White House in 2015 and developed by the Department of Defense, is a campaign aimed at educating the public on life-saving bleeding control techniques following everyday emergencies. The impetus to create the program was building national resiliency after the mass school shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Stop the Bleed is focused on providing bystanders of emergency situations with the tools and knowledge to stop life threatening bleeding and includes teaching of skills such as application of pressure dressings and tourniquets.

This article reported outcomes of an effort to train child student bystanders in these techniques. The curriculum was designed to provide information that was understandable by children aged 5–13 years; components of the curriculum were a 30-minute didactic session followed by 30 minutes of hands-on training.

500 children attended the program, and testing for retention of knowledge and technical skills was completed at 1 year following initial instruction in 272 participants; adequate retention of knowledge was documented in 70% of the tested participants.

The authors concluded that elements of the Stop the Bleed program could be successfully taught to children aged 5–13 years.