Student-Led Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Education to Lay Providers Results in Successful Knowledge Acquisition and...

To assess outcomes associated with student-led lay-responder cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) education to community members.

Healthcare students (87% pharmacy) were trained as American Heart Association (AHA)-certified CPR instructors and delivered CPR certification programs for the community through the AHA's Heartsaver® CPR Automated External Defibrillator (AED) certification course from August 2016 to January 2017. Knowledge acquisition was evaluated using 5 pre/ post-course questions adapted from the AHA Basic Life Support (BLS) certification course to be consistent with the AHA Heartsaver® CPR AED course learning objectives. Skill performance was evaluated using the AHA's standardized form for adult, child, and infant CPR assessment.

The majority of community member participants (n=105) were female (71%), African American (71%), 45-64 years of age (46%), employed (71%), college educated (50%), and had previous CPR training (63%). Participants demonstrated 100% success rate in correctly performing CPR skills. The mean percentage of correct responses increased from 36% for the pre-course questions to 85% for the post-course questions (p<0.001).

Healthcare students successfully provided CPR education to community members who then correctly demonstrated adult, child, and infant CPR skills. Data suggest that student-led CPR training has a positive impact on knowledge acquisition in community members.