Can effective basic life support be taught to untrained individuals during a cardiac arrest?

The objective of this study was to determine whether a trained rescuer could teach untrained bystanders to perform basic life support (BLS) during a simulated cardiac arrest.

Volunteers were recruited from hospital ancillary staff and relatives of patients attending an emergency department. None had previous formal training in BLS. They were asked to perform BLS without instruction on a Laerdal 'Resusi Annie'. An instructor then gave training whilst performing BLS. When volunteers felt competent they performed BLS on their own. A penalty score was used to assess their performance.

Fifty-one volunteers completed the study (32 female, 19 male) mean age was 39 years (range 18-67 years). All the 51 volunteers showed an improvement in their penalty score after instruction. The score improved from 86.9 (SD=13.8) to 38.2 (SD=11.8). This decline was statistically significant (paired-sample t-test, P<0.0001).

Untrained individuals showed an improvement in BLS skills when taught during a cardiac arrest.