Assessment of long-term impact of formal certified cardiopulmonary resuscitation training program among nurses.

CONTEXT: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and emergency cardiovascular care guidelines are periodically renewed and published by the American Heart Association. Formal training programs are conducted based on these guidelines. Despite widespread training CPR is often poorly performed. Hospital educators spend a significant amount of time and money in training health professionals and maintaining basic life support (BLS) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) skills among them. However, very little data are available in the literature highlighting the long-term impact of these training.

AIMS: To evaluate the impact of formal certified CPR training program on the knowledge and skill of CPR among nurses, to identify self-reported outcomes of attempted CPR and training needs of nurses.

SETTING AND DESIGN: Tertiary care hospital, Prospective, repeated-measures design.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A series of certified BLS and ACLS training programs were conducted during 2010 and 2011. Written and practical performance tests were done. Final testing was undertaken 3-4 years after training. The sample included all available, willing CPR certified nurses and experience matched CPR noncertified nurses.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: SPSS for Windows version 21.0.

RESULTS: The majority of the 206 nurses (93 CPR certified and 113 noncertified) were females. There was a statistically significant increase in mean knowledge level and overall performance before and after the formal certified CPR training program (P = 0.000). However, the mean knowledge scores were equivalent among the CPR certified and noncertified nurses, although the certified nurses scored a higher mean score (P = 0.140).

CONCLUSIONS: Formal certified CPR training program increases CPR knowledge and skill. However, significant long-term effects could not be found. There is a need for regular and periodic recertification.