Nurses are more efficient than doctors in teaching basic life support and automated external defibrillator in nurses

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Medical Education
• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Background:

• Cardiac arrest (CA) is a significant global health concern.
• The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) provides standardized Basic Life Support/Automated External Defibrillation (BLS/AED) training for out-of-hospital CA.
• Effective BLS/AED training is crucial for improving survival rates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of nurse-instructors versus doctor-instructors in teaching BLS/AED skills.
• To evaluate the resuscitation skills of nursing staff trained by different instructor groups.
• To identify potential differences in skill acquisition and performance.

Main Methods:

• A comparative study involving 108 nurses trained in BLS/AED.
• Two groups of instructors: newly trained ERC nurse-instructors and newly trained doctor-instructors.
• Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) used for re-evaluation one month post-training.

Main Results:

• No significant difference in written test scores between groups.
• Practical skills assessment revealed differences: nurses trained by doctors showed better performance in chest compressions and AED handling.
• Nurses trained by doctors demonstrated more focused performance, accurate AED use, and continuous cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Conclusions:

• While both instructor groups achieved comparable theoretical knowledge transfer, practical skills varied.
• Nurses trained by doctor-instructors exhibited superior performance in critical BLS/AED procedures.
• The study suggests that nurses may be more efficient in training fellow nurses in specific resuscitation techniques.