Cardiopulmonary resuscitation with semi-automated external defibrillator: assessment of the teaching-learning process

Abstract

Studies demonstrate that, for every minute delayed on defibrillating a heart arrest patient, survival chances decrease by 10%, and that the same chances of survival are 98% effective when it is employed within 30 seconds. While attending a heart arrest patient, it is crucial that the use of external semi-automated defibrillator (AED) is included in the training. The purpose of the present study is to compare Psychomotor Ability and the Theoretical Knowledge of lay people on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) using AED, before and after training. This sample was composed of 40 administrative workers of a public institution that were trained on CPR technique using EAD, as an experiment. The significantly higher scores in the assessment instrument items of Psychomotor Ability and Theoretical Knowledge, after training, indicates that the participants have presented improvements in their performances.