Cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills in nurses and nursing students
Introduction
Poor results in surveys, concerning the skills of nurses in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (resuscitation–need assessment, mouth-to-mouth ventilation and external chest compression) [1], [2], [3], suggest a need for a review of resuscitation training. Several studies have shown that the retention of CPR skills is poor and not consistently related to the quality and recency of training. Indeed, the lack of CPR training is the primary reason why a witness of an accident is reluctant to start basic life (BLS) support procedures [4].
Adequate resuscitation by nurses is an important factor in determining survival from an episode of ventricular fibrillation. In most hospital cases, nurses are nearby and are the first to arrive on the scene. They must, therefore, be fully competent to perform BLS.
Chest compression and mouth-to-mouth ventilation are the basic elements of CPR, yet no information is available about skill proficiency of nurses or students in Finland, who normally receive BLS education during their training. In Finland, there are no common standards for the training of BLS procedures. This study examined the ability of nurses and students to attain and retain CPR skills.
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Material and methods
The present study was conducted in 1997 at the 600-bedded University Hospital in Helsinki, in four institutes of nursing in Uusimaa county, and in one institute of nursing in Budapest, Hungary. Nurses in the hospital, and nursing students in the institutes of nursing were invited to participate in the study. They were informed that data collection would be taking place for a duration of 3 days in their unit and they had the opportunity to take part in the research. The participants included 75
Results
The oldest participant was 57-years-old and the youngest 20. The median age of the nurses was 32 years and the nursing students’ 24 years. Fifty-three percent of the participants had attended CPR courses during the last 6 months; we found no statistically significant differences between nurses and student groups in CPR training attendance.
Before the test, 55% of the participants evaluated their skills as good and 45% said their skills were poor or could not answer the question; there were no
Discussion
The aim of the study was to describe and compare the basic cardiac life support skills of nurses and nursing students. On the basis of the results, we can say that only 16% (CI 7.5–25%) of the nurses in the Helsinki University Central Hospital's medical outcome unit, 41% (CI 34–48%) of the nursing students in Uusimaa county, and 54% (CI 37–71%) of the Hungarian nursing students can correctly check whether the casualty is responsive. Sixty percent (CI 49–71%) of the nurses, 71% (CI 64–78%) of
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Cited by (113)
Guess it (SVUAL): An app designed to help nursing students acquire and retain knowledge about basic and advanced life support techniques
2021, Nurse Education in PracticeCitation Excerpt :However, there is universal evidence that suggests that CPR knowledge and skills are poorly retained among the general population (Broomfield, 1996; Moule and Knight, 1997; Handley and Handley, 2003) and the results are inconclusive (Hamilton, 2005). The skills required for basic CPR have long been characterized as being difficult to teach, and once they are taught, the knowledge is difficult to retain (Batcheller et al., 2000; Chamberlain et al., 2002; Christenson et al., 2007; Nyman and Sihvonen, 2000). The development of specific learning tools, such as using different apps developed for Android and other smartphones, has improved CPR training.
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