Hospital employees' theoretical knowledge on what to do in an in-hospital cardiac arrest.
BACKGROUND
Guidelines recommend that all health care professionals should be able to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), including the use of an automated external defibrillator. Theoretical knowledge of CPR is then necessary.The aim of this study was to investigate how much theoretical knowledge in CPR would increase among all categories of health care professionals lacking training in CPR, in an intervention hospital, after a systematic standardised training. Their results were compared with the staff at a control hospital with an ongoing annual CPR training programme.


METHODS
Health care professionals at two hospitals, with a total of 3144 employees, answered a multiple-choice questionnaire before and after training in CPR. Bootstrapped chi-square tests and Fisher's exact test were used for the statistical analyses.


RESULTS
In the intervention hospital, physicians had the highest knowledge pre-test, but other health care professionals including nurses and assistant nurses reached a relatively high level post-test. Improvement was inversely related to the level of previous knowledge and was thus most marked among other health care professionals and least marked among physicians.The staff at the control hospital had a significantly higher level of knowledge pre-test than the intervention hospital, whereas the opposite was found post-test.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall theoretical knowledge increased after systematic standardised training in CPR. The increase was more pronounced for those without previous training and for those staff categories with the least medical education.
Källestedt
Marie-Louise Södersved
ML
Uppsala University, Centre for Clinical Research, Central Hospital, Västerås, Sweden. marie-louise.sodersved.kallestedt@ltv.se
Rosenblad
Andreas
A
Leppert
Jerzy
J
Herlitz
Johan
J
Enlund
Mats
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010564:Personnel, Hospital; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult