Cardiopulmonary resuscitation knowledge among nursing students: a questionnaire study

Nurses are usually first witnesses to in-hospital sudden cardiac arrests. Training of nurses has an impact on the efficiency and outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and thus, assessment of CPR knowledge among undergraduate nurses is very important to improve training program.

The questionnaire comprised of three parts about CPR knowledge: the first dealing with general questions to understand the importance of CPR in clinical practice; the second comprising the main goal and accuracy of CPR intervention; and the last consisting of questions targeting the indications, methods, and effectiveness of CPR. Descriptive statistics and multiple response analyses were done by IBM SPSS version 20.

The students had good knowledge about the importance of CPR in clinical practice and stood average in knowing its indications and effectiveness. The mean score was 64.62±17.84 out of 100 points. While only 11% of them were completely aware about the universal compression ventilation ratio, 16.2% were aware of the current compression depth. In addition, 21.8% of participants have only indicated the order of CPR being compression, airway, and breathing.

Knowledge of CPR is good among the nursing students. However, skills of CPR have to be improved by current training programs at regular intervals. Their knowledge and practical approach have to be updated with the current guidelines in CPR.