The impact an educational film has on secondary school pupils’ knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Overview

Background:
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an essential part of first aid. Care is taken in the Czech Republic to educate adolescents about CPR. The aim of our study was to assess the actual level of theoretical knowledge about CPR and the effectiveness of an educational film developed with support from The National Project of Public Health department of the Czech Ministry of Health.

Aims and methods:
We developed a simple multiple-choice questionnaire with 17 questions with 4 possible answers. The questionnaire was distributed to secondary school students (excluding those with a medical specialisation). The McNemara chi-square test of symmetry was used for statistical evaluation.

Results:
Atotal of 796 students from 26 classrooms participated, 784 (98.5 %) pairs of questionnaires could be used for evaluation. Initial knowledge of CPR was low (usually less than 30 % correct answers). There was a significant increase (p<0.001) in the number of correct single answers as well as the total score after the film (a 37 % increase in correct answers on average).

Conclusion:
our results demonstrate that in spite of the effort to increase the level of knowledge about CPR in laymen, the actual level of knowledge is low and more frequent repetition of courses should be considered. The educational film is a useful tool for teaching of CPR.

Key words:
cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Basic Life Support, education.