Elsevier

Resuscitation

Volume 75, Issue 1, October 2007, Pages 169-175
Resuscitation

Training and educational paper
Teaching basic life support to school children using medical students and teachers in a ‘peer-training’ model—Results of the ‘ABC for life’ programme

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2007.03.009Get rights and content

Summary

Background

The ‘ABC for life’ programme was designed to facilitate the wider dissemination of basic life support (BLS) skills and knowledge in the population. A previous study demonstrated that using this programme 10–12-year olds are capable of performing and retaining these vital skills when taught by medical students. There are approximately 25,000 year 7 school children in 900 primary schools in Northern Ireland. By using a pyramidal teaching approach involving medical students and teachers, there is the potential to train BLS to all of these children each year.

Aims

To assess the effectiveness of a programme of CPR instruction using a three-tier training model in which medical students instruct primary school teachers who then teach school children.

Settings

School children and teachers in the Western Education and Library Board in Northern Ireland.

Methods

A course of instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) – the ‘ABC for life’ programme – specifically designed to teach 10–12-year-old children basic life support skills.

Medical students taught teachers from the Western Education and Library Board area of Northern Ireland how to teach basic life support skills to year 7 pupils in their schools. Pupils were given a 22-point questionnaire to assess knowledge of basic life support immediately before and after a teacher led training session.

Results

Children instructed in cardiopulmonary resuscitation using this three-tier training had a significantly improved score following training (57.2% and 77.7%, respectively, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that primary school teachers, previously trained by medical students, can teach BLS effectively to 10–12-year-old children using the ‘ABC for life’ programme.

Introduction

Better outcomes have been associated with cardiac arrests occurring in a public place compared to a private location, which is thought to be due to earlier initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).1 Bystander CPR is associated with increased chance of survival,2 with a two-fold increase in survival rate shown when CPR was performed by laypersons.2, 3

CPR training for school students was first introduced in Norway in the 1960s.4 In order to target as many young people as possible, others have suggested that a CPR training programme should be included in the school curriculum.5, 6, 7 We have demonstrated previously that using our training methods, 10–12-year-old children can both acquire and retain this knowledge for at least 6 months when taught by medical students.8 Other studies have shown that children are capable of learning CPR5, 6, 9, 10, 11 with effective learning achievable in children as young as 6 or 7 years of age.10 Teachers have been used to train pupils successfully in CPR5, 6, 9 and schools may provide the perfect environment for retraining, thus ensuring retention of knowledge.6, 11

Wik et al. demonstrated that a peer-training pyramidal approach is effective in training CPR to a large number of lay people.12 Using a three-tier model, lay people (tier 1) were trained as CPR instructors. Subsequently they trained fellow employees (tier 2) who in turn trained their family members in CPR skills (tier 3). Tier 3 trainees were equal to, if not better than a traditionally trained group.

The ‘ABC for life’ programme was developed to introduce BLS training into primary schools in Northern Ireland.8 It uses a peer-training model of medical students who instruct teachers in basic life support (BLS). The teachers then train the year 7 primary school children in their schools.

Section snippets

Aims and objectives

To determine the effectiveness of our programme of instruction using a three-tier peer-training model in which medical students teach primary school teachers who then instruct primary school children.

Methods

The ‘ABC for life’ programme is a course in BLS training used in Northern Ireland (NI) and specifically designed for 10–12-year-old children. The design of the programme has previously been described.8 Briefly, medical students from Queen's University, Belfast are trained by cardiac resuscitation officers from a major teaching hospital to act as instructors in BLS. Each medical student subsequently instructs small groups of teachers in BLS (ratio 1:5, respectively) using the resuscitation

Results

Thirty-eight teachers from different primary schools each taught BLS to five year 7 pupils. These 190 children were asked to complete questionnaires before and after training. Of these, questionnaires were returned from 85 (44.7%) pupils at baseline and 80 (42.1%) pupils after training. Mean age was 10.7 years with 35% male and 65% female. Baseline score or score following training was not affected by gender, positive family history of heart disease or previous BLS training. However, male

Discussion

This study clearly demonstrates that, using the ABC for life training programme, primary school teachers who had been trained by medical students can significantly improve the understanding of the principles of basic life support skills in 10–12-year-old children.

A recent study of the education and logistical characteristics of a school-based BLS programme7 showed that of the surveys returned, greater than 80% felt that a CPR programme in schools would be welcomed by staff, students and

Conclusion

The ‘ABC for life’ programme is a three-tier peer-training model which uses a pyramidal approach to training basic life support to school children. Using this scheme primary school teachers can deliver an effective course of instruction to 10–12-year olds in 2 h, small group, training sessions. Provision of a training manual, manikin, instructional CD-ROM and access to video clips via a dedicated website allows the professional educators to train their 10–12-year-old pupils in the school

Conflict of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

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A Spanish translated version of the summary of this article appears as Appendix in the final online version at 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2007.03.009.

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