Objective  To examine the status quo of first aid ability among home-dwelling elderly in mature communities in Beijing.

  Methods  Using accidental sampling and a self-designed questionnaire, we conducted a survey among 498 permanent residents aged ≥ 65 years in 3 mature communities in Chaoyang district of Beijing during January 2017.

  Results  The average awareness rate of first aid knowledge was 66.8% for the 496 elderly completing the survey and 53.0% of the respondents reported basic first aid knowledge. The respondents reported higher awareness rates for phone number for calling ambulance, discrimination of stroke, and dealing with falling and lower awareness rates for discrimination of foreign body in respiratory tract and heatstroke treatment. The respondents′ basic first aid knowledge was influenced by marital status, annual household income, and education. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that higher education was a significant promoting factor for respondents′ basic first aid knowledge; the respondents with senior high school/vocational high school/technical secondary school were more likely to have basic first aid knowledge than those with little literacy/primary school education (odds ratio = 4.059, 95% confidence interval: 2.184 – 7.545). There were 86.1% of the respondents not having received any training on first aid and 79.2% considering first aid as one of basic skills for survival.

  Conclusion  First aid ability of elderly residents in mature communities of Beijing city needs to be improved.