Awareness, knowledge, and attitude towards basic life support among healthcare professional students in Bangladesh

A comprehensive understanding of emergency care is an essential skill for all medical students to effectively manage emergency situations. The aim of this study was to evaluate healthcare professional students' understanding of basic life support (BLS) and to identify the factors that influence this knowledge. A Multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted across eight educational institutions in the Dhaka, Jashore, and Sylhet divisions of Bangladesh from January to June 2024, which included final-year medicine, physiotherapy, and nursing students. A total of 486 participants were selected by the convenience sampling method. A bi-variable and multi-variable logistic regression analysis was carried out and the p-value was set at <0.05. In this study, 73.3% of participants had inadequate knowledge in basic component (BC) and 82.5% of participant had inadequate knowledge in individual component (IC) of BLS. Medicine students demonstrated a threefold increased understanding of BLS in its BC (AOR 2.80; 95% CI 1.70-4.61, p = 0.001). Participants who completed the BLS course demonstrated a twofold increase in knowledge of BLS (AOR 2.14; 95% CI 0.82-5.60, p = 0.123) regarding the BC. In contrast, female students demonstrated significantly lower knowledge of the IC of basic life support (AOR 0.56; 95% CI 0.33-0.93, p = 0.025). Medicine students (AOR 2.36; 95% CI 1.25-4.46, p = 0.009) and nursing students (AOR 2.26; 95% CI 1.18-4.32, p = 0.014) exhibited a significantly better understanding of the IC of BLS. Participants who had already taken the BLS course knew four times as much about each part of BLS (AOR 3.98; 95% CI 1.54-10.27, p = 0.004). This research indicates that healthcare professional students in Bangladesh possess insufficient knowledge of BLS. It is crucial for national health policymakers to priorities this finding and implement training programs for students, as well as professionals.