Hospital employees improve basic life support skills and confidence with a personal resuscitation manikin and a 24-min video instruction

• Published in: Resuscitation Vol. 80; no. 8; pp. 898 - 902
• Main Authors: Bjørshol, Conrad Arnfinn, Lindner, Thomas W., Søreide, Eldar, Moen, Leif, Sunde, Kjetil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 01.08.2009; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy; Basic life support (BLS); Biological and medical sciences; Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - education; Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - instrumentation; Emergency; Emergency and intensive cardiocirculatory care. Cardiogenic shock. Coronary intensive care; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Heart Arrest - therapy; Humans; Intensive care medicine; Male; Manikins; Medical sciences; Personnel, Hospital - education; Programmed Instruction as Topic; Time Factors; Training; Training; Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); Basic life support (BLS); Intensive cardiocirculatory care; Intensive care; Health staff
• ISSN: 0300-9572; 1873-1570; 1873-1570
• DOI: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2009.06.009

The use of a personal resuscitation manikin with video instruction is reportedly as effective as traditional instructor-led courses in teaching lay people basic life support (BLS). We applied this method to an entire hospital staff to determine its effect on their practical and self-judged BLS skills. All 5382 employees at Stavanger University Hospital were asked to learn or refresh their BLS skills with the personal resuscitation manikin and video instruction. Prior to and nine months after training, all employees were asked to rate their BLS skills on a scale from one to five. Additionally, randomly chosen study subjects were tested for BLS skills pre-training and six months post-training during 2 min of resuscitation on a manikin. In total, 5118 employees took part in the BLS training program. The number of correct chest compressions increased significantly from 60 (5–102) to 119 (75–150) in the pre- vs. post-training periods, respectively, P < 0.01, but the number of correct MTM ventilations did not change. Self-reported BLS skills increased from 3.1 (±1.0) pre-training to 3.8 (±0.8) post-training, P = 0.031. After distributing a personal resuscitation manikin with video instruction to an entire hospital staff, the median number of correctly performed chest compressions doubled and self-confidence in BLS skills improved significantly. This is a simple and less time-consuming method than instructor-led courses in preparing hospital employees in the basic handling of cardiac arrest.