A free app has been launched to assist West Australians this summer, after a study found the state was the least confident in dealing with bites and stings from venomous creatures.
The survey by Seqirus revealed 62 per cent of West Australians wouldn’t know what to do or were unsure on the correct first aid for these potentially deadly situations.
This statistic is well above the national average of 48 per cent.
Epworth Richmond Emergency Department associate professor Bill Nimorakiotakis said these statistics were concerning for people in regional WA who enjoyed bush walking and swimming in summer.
“WA being such a big percentage of Australia has almost everything venomous except the funnel-web spider,” he said.
"There are venomous creatures all around – on land and in sea from the red-back spider, to snakes and marine life like bluebottles.”
The app provides users with information on which venomous creatures are most relevant to their geo- location and doesn't require internet connection.
Other key findings from the study showed only 11 per cent of Australians refreshed their knowledge on first aid for venomous bites and stings, millennials were the least likely to know how to deal with encounters and more than 50 per cent of parents wouldn’t know what to do.
Professor Nimorakiotakis said there were several reasons why Australians weren’t informed on dealing with venomous wounds.
“There is 100 per cent not enough education and many people are moving from metropolitan areas to the regions who have no idea about this sort of thing,” he said.
“Australia is also a really diverse country multiculturally so there are a lot of people who are new to Australia who come from countries that don’t have venomous creatures.”
He warned people away from self diagnosing through search engines or believing old tales on treatments.
”A lot of Google searches can be quite bad,” he said.
“An 80-year-old person might think that it is appropriate to try and suck venom from a snake wound and to this day there are people in America selling suction devices because there is market for it.
“With this app, we try and tell the community what is the appropriate thing to do and make it easier for them to understand why that is the appropriate first aid.”
Incidences with venomous creatures including snakes, spiders and marine animals were reported to cause 41,521 hospitalisations in Australia from 2001 to 2013.
To download Australian Bites and Stings: First Aid Guide to Australian Venomous Creature visit seqirus.com.au/bites-app.
