Effectiveness of Teaching and Demonstration in Improvement of Knowledge and Skill on CPR among School-going Adolescents: A Quasi-experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the most evolving areas of saving actions that improve the survival rates following cardiac arrest and educating high school students can play a dynamic role in case of emergencies in society. Education of school students in CPR is a strategic goal for the improvement of bystander CPR in rural society. If adolescents were trained to perform CPR during school physical education hours, this may be a cost-effective approach to CPR training. This study is conducted to assess the effectiveness of health education in the improvement of knowledge of CPR among school-going adolescents. Aim: To assess the effect of a training program on students’ knowledge of CPR. Objective: (A) To determine the background knowledge of high school students about cardiac arrest and basic life support in adult victims of cardiac arrest. (B) To determine the association between knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and skills with selected demographic variables. Materials and methods: This is a quasi-experimental study conducted among adolescents aged 13–15 years attending schools in rural areas of South India. The study was conducted between Jan 2022 and Jan 2023. 680 students were included in this study. The universal sampling method was used to enumerate the participants to reduce the impact of the dropout rate. The data was collected using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire by interview method. Basic teaching of CPR for the participants included 2 hours of oral teaching using lecture method, question and answer discussion method as well as 2 hours of practical session using demonstration, practice on a manikin, provision of feedback and correction of errors. Results: A total of 680 participants were grouped into three categories according to their knowledge scores: (A) fair, (B) Moderate, and (C) Good scores obtained in pre-training observation and post-training observation. Initially, there were 666 (97.9%) in the fair category, most of them improved after training as seen in the post-training observation results, with 97 (14.3%) persons in the fair (A) category. There was not a single student in the good category of the score before intervention, which increased to 665 (45.6%) in the good category of knowledge. The mean score of pre-training is 2.55, and the post-training score is significantly increased to 9.5. Conclusion: An improvement is observed in knowledge of CPR post-training with planned teaching and demonstration. Hence, this method can be considered a logical solution for improving knowledge about CPR in cases of emergency life-saving skills in a particular group of society.