IMPACT OF AWARENESS-RAISING CAMPAIGN ON PREVENTION OF PYROTECHNIC-RELATED HAND INJURIES IN NORTH MACEDONIA DURING CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS

Abstract

Firecrackers and other pyrotechnic materials are used worldwide to celebrate national, religious, cultural festivals and holidays. In our country the use of firecrackers is usually during the holiday season, particularly during New Year's and Christmas days. The majority of users of firecrackers are adolescents who want to make the celebration more exciting, not being aware of the harmful effects and severe injures they can get by using pyrotechnics. The injuries caused by using pyrotechnics can vary from moderate such as first or second-degree burns to severe injuries like traumatic amputation of the fingers and hand, resulting in life-long mutilation. These injuries are expected to have long-term functional and psychological sequalae. Precisely because of that, our clinic started an awareness-raising campaign on prevention of pyrotechnic-hand injuries (PPH campaign) named "Don't let the firecrackers ruin your holidays”. The aim of this article is to present the impact of our PPH campaign in awareness raising against the use of pyrotechnic explosives and prevention of severe hand injuries by educating 15-16-year-old students about the dangers of using pyrotechnics and emphasizing the complexity of the hand and its importance in everyday life. In our study we used an anonymous questionnaire in order to see what was the impact of our presentation and discussions on students during the PPH campaign. From our 5-year experience with this type of campaign, we can see that awareness campaigns gave excellent results in decreasing the number of hand injuries. Therefore, our goal is this PPH awareness–raising campaign to be organized every year for generations to come.