Abstract:

Introduction/Background:
Circulation system diseases are the first cause of death in Spain. According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), they represent 29.7% of all deaths. Cardiorespiratory arrest (CRA) consists in respiratory and/or spontaneous cardiocirculatory functions stopping suddenly and unexpectedly, which is potentially reversible. CRA can be reversed if action is taken early, within the first few minutes of someone becoming unconscious. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) manoeuvres are essential for the survival of those who suffer CRA and improve their prognosis. It has been demonstrated that the time between CRA and CPR starting is one of the most important prognosis factors.
Training uninformed people in resuscitation manoeuvres is crucial for the survival of someone affected by CRA. According to the European Resuscitation Council’s (ERC) 2015 guidelines, the recommended age at which educational actions on this matter can be given is 12 years, and 2 hours of training a year is enough. Nowadays, however, no such training programmes exist in school syllabi for adolescents in the Spanish compulsory education system, but students may attend these courses as extracurricular activities if they wish. Training in CPR techniques could be transmitted through community nurses, as part as educational health community work, or through school nurses, who are available in some settings, as they are professionals with ample health training experience.
Therefore, the objective is to centre on education action taken on CPR manoeuvres with secondary education adolescents to inform about the importance of these techniques for the survival of the population susceptible to CRA. In order to attract more interest in this matter, this professional group needs to be aware that knowledge on CPR is lacking before such action can be taken.

Method:
A quasi-experimental pre- and post-action study was conducted with a sample of 40 students in course 4 of Spanish compulsory secondary education (ESO, in Spanish) aged 15-16 years. This sample is representative of all the other students studying the same ESO course in the schools of the Castilla-La Mancha Spanish Autonomous Community. The 40 students who decided to participate in the study attended two talks on CRA and CPR manoeuvres, one pre- and another post-action, and answered the questions that the authors devised both before and after educational action in CRA and CPR was offered.

Results:
Of the 40 participant students, 55% (n=22) were male (55%) and the mean age of all the participants (n=40) was 15.5 years (SD± 0.6).
The mean number of items with a favourable response provided by the participants before attending educational action in CRA and CPR was 2.9 out of 8 (SD±1.4), but was 5.7 out of 8 (SD±1.2) afterwards. Statistically significant differences were observed for the questionnaire results obtained before and after educational action was provided (p<0.001). This education action improved students’ knowledge about CPR.

Conclusions:
Educational action based on demonstrating lack of knowledge about CPR can prove successful and awaken interest in the school community to learn about this matter. Community and/or school nurses could be the indicated professionals to teach these techniques given their proximity with the community and its health problems. It might also be interesting to consider including this type of training in ESO students’ syllabi

Keywords:

Cardiorespiratory arrest, Educational action, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Adolescents, Community nurses, School nurses.