[Regional differences in the Belgian national campaign for a citizen CPR education "3 minutes for a life"]

In 1986-1988 the Belgian Red Cross and the Belgian Heart Association organised a nationwide citizen-CPR campaign. In this report regional differences in attitude towards CPR, in perception of promotion and in CPR instruction are studied. In two telephone inquiries (study sample n = 2400) organised with one year interval perception of the promotional efforts of the campaign was studied. During the campaign date on 102,249 trainees (study sample n = 17491) and 9927 courses were collected. For each individual CPR course and trainee an evaluation form was generated, describing the profile of instructor, course and trainee. The telephone inquiries demonstrated that french speaking responders were less prone to personal active involvement in case of an unconscious victim (30% vs 47%) and less frequently planned to attend a CPR course (31% vs 22%) as compared to Flemish responders. Concerning CPR instruction, in the Flemish community 72613 citizens were trained in 5505 courses by 768 instructors. In the french community 29636 people were trained in 4425 courses by 524 instructors. Flemish instructors were less experienced than french instructors in CPR teaching (greater than 25 courses: FI 27%, Fr 41%). The profile of CPR instructors and CPR courses were markedly different in both communities but the trainee and teaching results were identical.