CPR in medical schools: learning by teaching BLS to sudden cardiac death survivors--a promising strategy for medical students?

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training is gaining more importance for medical students. There were many attempts to improve the basic life support (BLS) skills in medical students, some being rather successful, some less. We developed a new problem based learning curriculum, where students had to teach CPR to cardiac arrest survivors in order to improve the knowledge about life support skills of trainers and trainees.

METHODS:
Medical students who enrolled in our curriculum had to pass a 2 semester problem based learning session about the principles of cardiac arrest, CPR, BLS and defibrillation (CPR-D). Then the students taught cardiac arrest survivors who were randomly chosen out of a cardiac arrest database of our emergency department. Both, the student and the Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) survivor were asked about their skills and knowledge via questionnaires immediately after the course. The questionnaires were then used to evaluate if this new teaching strategy is useful for learning CPR via a problem-based-learning course. The survey was grouped into three categories, namely "Use of AED", "CPR-D" and "Training". In addition, there was space for free answers where the participants could state their opinion in their own words, which provided some useful hints for upcoming programs.

RESULTS:
This new learning-by-teaching strategy was highly accepted by all participants, the students and the SCD survivors. Most SCD survivors would use their skills in case one of their relatives goes into cardiac arrest (96%). Furthermore, 86% of the trainees were able to deal with failures and/or disturbances by themselves. On the trainer's side, 96% of the students felt to be well prepared for the course and were considered to be competent by 96% of their trainees.

CONCLUSION:
We could prove that learning by teaching CPR is possible and is highly accepted by the students. By offering a compelling appreciation of what CPR can achieve in using survivors from SCD as trainees made them go deeper into the subject of resuscitation, what also might result in a longer lasting benefit than regular lecture courses in CPR.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Robak, Oliver (O); Kulnig, Johannes (J); Sterz, Fritz (F); Uray, Thomas (T); Haugk, Moritz (M); Kliegel, Andreas (A); Holzer, Michael (M); Herkner, Harald (H); Laggner, Anton N (AN); Domanovits, Hans (H);

Affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Austria Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria. oliver.robak(-atsign-)gmx.at

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: BMC medical education (BMC Med Educ), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-; vol 6 (issue ) : pp 27

Dates: Created 2006/06/15; Completed 2006/06/19; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 16646966, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Austria
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - education
Clinical Competence
Death, Sudden, Cardiac - prevention & control
Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods
Electric Countershock - methods
Emergency Medicine - education
Female

Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Humans
Male
Problem-Based Learning - methods
Program Evaluation
Questionnaires
Students, Medical - psychology
Survivors - psychology
Teaching - methods

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.