Retention of survival swimming skills among SwimSafe graduates in rural communities of Bangladesh: Results from a cross-sectional study.

Background: Drowning is the leading cause of death among children in rural Bangladesh. While survival swimming for children ages 6 years and above is recommended in low-income and middle-income countries, research into the long-term retention of survival swimming skills is absent.

Methods: The retention of four survival swimming skills, including swimming for 25 m, floating/treading for 30 s, reach rescue skills and throw rescue skills, was observed among those trained under the SwimSafe programme more than 10 years ago. Information about the practice of survival swimming skills among SwimSafe graduates and whether they recommended such lessons for others was also collected through surveys. A multistage sampling strategy was used. Descriptive statistics on the retention of survival swimming skills and other variables and ORs from logistic regression analysis were reported.

Results: A total of 3603 SwimSafe graduates were observed. The retention of swimming and floating/treading skills was 88.4% and 89.7%, respectively, and that of swimming and floating/treading skills combined was 84.2%. While 87.7% of the graduates retained reach rescue skills, the retention of throw rescue skills was lower (71.9%). Approximately 60.6% of the graduates retained all four survival swimming skills. The majority of the graduates (70.3%) rarely practised swimming following graduation. Overall, 61.7% of the graduates recommended other children to learn survival swimming skills.

Conclusion: The majority of the SwimSafe graduates retained swimming and floating/treading skills for over 10 years despite minimal practice. Retention of throw rescue skills was lower. Therefore, refresher training and awareness campaigns focused on survival swimming skills are recommended.