Article Text
Abstract
Background Drowning is the first leading cause of death for children age lower than 15 years. The mortality rate per 100 000 children aged 0–14 years is between 9.3 and 11.5, (2004–2008). A survey on the swimming ability of Thai children under 15 reveals that only 16.3% of them can swim.
Objective To evaluate of general swimming and safety swimming programme.
Methodology This study is the Quasi-Experimental Research, which has the objective to evaluate the three group of children's the ability to swim and skills to make them survive when they have crisis during swim. These groups of children were given the different swimming courses.
Result The result of the study showed that after completion of the courses, there were no significant differences among three groups of children in terms of the ability to swim, when they were tested to swim for 25 m distance. However, in terms of ability to perform safety and rescue swimming, the children in group 1 demonstrated more effective than other children from groups 2 and 3, respectively.
Conclusion and Discussion In summary, we found that the children who took part in the course that specific for safety and rescue swimming had more ability than ones who took part in general swimming course. Therefore, the safety and rescue swimming courses (survival swimming curriculum) should be promoted widely throughout the country, and this will help to reduce the death of children due to drowning.