title: Results achieved by emergency physicians in teaching basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation to secondary school students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the results obtained with a basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (b-CPR) program (PROCES) specifically designed for secondary school students (14-16 years old) and taught by emergency physicians.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used a multiple-choice test with 20 questions (10 on theory and 10 on skills) answered before and immediately after and 1 year after receiving the b-CPR course. Satisfactory learning was considered when at least 8 out of 10 skill questions were correctly answered. We investigated student variables associated with better immediate and deferred (1 year after) PROCES performance. We compared the results with those obtained using a more standardized program to teach b-CPR to police cadets.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We enrolled 600 high school students. PROCES achieved significant improvement in overall, theory and skill marks immediately after the course (P<0.001), with a significant decay in all of them 1 year after the course (P<0.001). Satisfactory learning was achieved by 57% of school students immediately after PROCES and by 37% when assessed 1 year later. Students without pending study subjects (P=0.001) and those from private schools (P<0.01) achieved significantly better performance immediately after PROCES and only female students achieved greater performance 1 year after the course (P<0.05). With respect to police cadets instructed through a standardized course, immediate satisfactory learning of school students was lower (79 vs. 57%, respectively; P<0.001), whereas deferred satisfactory learning was higher (23 vs. 37%, respectively; P<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Emergency physicians can satisfactorily instruct secondary school students in b-CPR using PROCES, and this specific program achieves a reasonable amount of satisfactory learning.
authors.affiliation: SEMSA, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiménez-Fábrega
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Escalada-Roig
authors.forename: Miquel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Culla
authors.forename: Núria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Villena
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rodríguez
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gaspar
authors.forename: José Emilio
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Molina
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salvador
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Miró
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000193:education*; D004635:Emergency Medicine; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016495:Police / Q000193:education; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013030:Spain