WASHINGTON, DC - Freshmen at eight Florida high schools who learned how to provide circulatory support to someone in sudden cardiac arrest using chest compressions without mouth-to-mouth ventilations said they would be significantly more comfortable performing the skill in a real-life situation when their training included a hands-on component, according to a new study.
The study, to be presented at the 2015 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition in Washington, DC, examined a collaborative project between Hillsborough County Public Schools, the American Heart Association--Tampa Bay Metro Board, Hillsborough Fire Rescue and the Johns Hopkins All Children's Heart Institute. The project included all ninth-grade students attending eight high schools in urban, suburban and more rural regions within the Tampa area.
Prior to participating in this CPR education project, students watched a traditional training video in class. The new program studied combined a video component plus hands-on training with manikins to learn compression-only CPR. Post-test results showed that the hands-on training significantly improved the students' willingness to perform CPR and overall knowledge about effectively performing the skill. Nearly three-quarters of the students responded that they would feel comfortable performing hands-only CPR if they witness someone having a cardiac arrest, for example, compared to 47 percent before the training session.
Lead author Jacquelyn F. Crews, M.D., a pediatric resident at All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine in St. Petersburg, said the findings are important because survival rate after sudden cardiac arrest that occurs outside the hospital without CPR is less than 10 percent.
"This grim statistic may drastically improve to greater than 60 percent with the addition of immediate CPR," Dr. Crews said. "Hands-only CPR is an effective way to teach large groups of people effective lifesaving skills and increase their willingness to use them if they witness a cardiac arrest," she said.
Co-author Elena Rueda-de-Leon, MD, MS, also a pediatric resident at All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine, said that even before the study's results were in, the project's impact on students was apparent.
"We saw confidence build in the teenagers' eyes, body language, and knowledge during training of this critical skill," Dr. Rueda-de-Leon said. "If CPR hands-only training became part of every school curriculum, we could see an exponential number of life-saving hands available at the drop of a heartbeat."
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Crews will present the abstract, "Effectiveness of Mass Hands-Only CPR with Psychomotor Skill Training in High School Students in the United States," at 4:15 pm on Friday, Oct. 23 in the Washington Marriott Marquis Ballroom Salons 1-3. To view the abstract, visithttps://aap.confex.com/aap/2015/webprogrampreliminary/Paper30444.html.
Please note: only the abstract is being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researcher may have more data available to share with media, or may be preparing a longer article for submission to a journal. Contact the researcher for more information.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 64,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit http://www.aap.org.
About All Children's Hospital
All Children's Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine located in St. Petersburg, is the most advanced children's hospital on Florida's west coast and a U.S. News & World Report Best Children's Hospital. With over 50 pediatric specialties and 259 beds, All Children's Hospital is dedicated to advancing children's health through treatment, research, education and advocacy. Programs that include a Clinical and Translational Research Organization, pediatric biorepository and a new pediatric residency program are driving innovation in personalized pediatric medicine and child health. A network of 11 outpatient care centers throughout west central Florida and affiliate programs at regional hospitals make All Children's Hospital a leading provider of care for children from Florida and beyond.