Brazilian soccer heartsaver programme

Abstract

Cardiac arrest with ventricular fibrillation (VF) is the main cause of sudden death. Sports activity can trigger sudden cardiac death in athletes with ventricular arrhythmias. Despite the headline-grabbing stories of athletes who had cardiac arrest on the playing field, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and early defibrillation, before the arrival of advanced life support (ALS), are directly related to chances of survival. For this reason, bystander participation in CPR is as important as medical assistance. In Sao Paulo, we trained 400 Referees in BLS, before the beginning of the 2005 Sao Paulo soccer championship. The campaign was aimed to educate referees about the importance of basic life support (BLS) instructions and the use of automatic external defibrillators (AED). Student performance did not vary as measured by mean scores on the final written examination (p = 0.9). New emphasis on treatment during the first 10 min of ventricular fibrillation resulted in both cohorts answering questions correctly concerning this core material. Near unanimous agreement was reached that the course was worthwhile and should be recommended. We propose that campaign to educate and motivate authorities to develop continuous education programmes in BLS may influence the medical community to improve the qualifying in CPR performance.