title: Cardiologists' knowledge of the 2005 American Heart Association Resuscitation Guidelines: The Athens Study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The study objective was to determine cardiologists' theoretic knowledge of the 2005 American Heart Association (AHA) resuscitation guidelines.
  
  
  METHODS
  The questionnaire consisted of demographic questions, resuscitation experience questions, a question regarding confidence in resuscitation skills, and 20 theoretic knowledge questions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the theoretic knowledge questions, the participants' overall mean score was 9.9 ± 4.6 (range 3-20). Participants who had received advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) training scored significantly higher. Furthermore, those who had attended the ACLS course in the preceding year scored significantly higher compared with those who had attended the ACLS course more than 1 year before the survey (19.1 ± .6 vs 16.7 ± .67, P = .001). Theoretic knowledge of resuscitation did not increase with seniority. Furthermore, no correlation was observed between the theoretic knowledge scores and participants' self-appraisal of resuscitation knowledge.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cardiologists have knowledge gaps in the 2005 AHA resuscitation guidelines. Resuscitation knowledge decay 1 year after the course is evident.
authors: 12th Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sotiria General Hospital, Athens, Greece.
authors: Ioannis
authors: I
authors: Pantazopoulos
authors: Afrodite
authors: A
authors: Aggelina
authors: Dimitrios
authors: D
authors: Barouxis
authors: Panagiotis
authors: P
authors: Papapanagiotou
authors: Georgios
authors: G
authors: Troupis
authors: Evangellos
authors: E
authors: Kotsiomitis
authors: Theano
authors: T
authors: Demestiha
authors: Theodoros
authors: T
authors: Xanthos
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000572:American Heart Association; D002309:Cardiology; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States