Abstract:

Cardiorespiratory arrest (CRA) remains one of the most prevalent cardiovascular emergencies worldwide, with high morbidity and mortality. Characterized by the absence of cardiac, breathing and cerebral mechanical activity, CRA leads to the cessation of heartbeats. It can occur in hospital and out-of-hospital environments, such as residences, airports, malls, parks, stadiums, schools and universities. However, when the event occurs in an out-of-hospital environment, it is considered a serious public health problem due to unpreparedness and lack of population knowledge for the recognition and management of a CRA. The presence of an individual trained to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), whether health professional or layperson, is a determining factor for the individual's survival. There is evidence on the reduction of mortality in victims of CRA who immediately received the CPR by volunteers. The creation of international protocols and algorithms such as Basic Life Support (BLS), allowed the standardization and organization of the assistance that should be performed. The BLS is defined as the first approach of the victim, which has the main purpose of promoting the artificial circulation of oxygenated blood by the body, especially for the brain and heart until the vital functions return spontaneously. In this context, the undergraduate courses in health care have an important role in the training and qualification of the lay population for this. Thus, the present work aims to report the experience of teachers of the Bachelor of Nursing Course of a private University in the city of São Paulo about this health education process. This experience is part of the university's first aid extension project, whose activities were developed by university students from the nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy and biomedicine courses. It was aimed at training university employees to approach a victim of cardiac arrest. The project was developed in six stages: theorization; elaboration of educational material (videos and e-book); creation of a social networking page and postings; production of mannequins to simulate care with sustainable material; training of students to deal with PCR situations; and finally, the training of university employees. For the training, the methodology of realistic simulation was used, in which the participants were instructed and trained as to the execution of the stages involved, in the mannequins previously built by the students of the project. A total of 110 individuals were trained, who demonstrated their involvement and satisfaction with the content covered. With this experience, it was possible to verify that health education regarding the stages of cardiorespiratory arrest care with simulated practices proved to be an important learning tool for the lay population.

Keywords:

Cardiorespiratory arrest, Basic Life Support, Lay population.