Effect of 3basic life support training programs in future primary school teachers. A quasi-experimental design

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Background:

• Basic life support (BLS) is crucial for immediate emergency response.
• Effective BLS training is essential for laypersons to improve patient outcomes.
• Evaluating different teaching methodologies is key to optimizing BLS education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of three distinct BLS teaching programs.
• To assess laypersons' learning of BLS measures after different instructional interventions.
• To identify the optimal teaching method for improving BLS skills.

Main Methods:

• A quasi-experimental before-after study was conducted.
• 124 primary school teacher students with no prior BLS knowledge participated.
• Interventions included a traditional course, audio-visual approach, and feedback devices.

Main Results:

• Feedback devices significantly enhanced chest compression quality (depth, rate, recoil, accuracy; p<0.001).
• All three methods reduced the time to apply an automated external defibrillator shock (p=0.025).
• Feedback devices demonstrated a clear advantage in improving chest compression metrics.

Conclusions:

• BLS training using feedback devices yields superior chest compression quality compared to traditional or audio-visual methods.
• All evaluated teaching methods effectively reduce defibrillation time.
• Feedback-enhanced BLS training is recommended for laypersons.