Resuscitation knowledge and skills of University Hospital AHEPA nursing staff

The aim of this study was to evaluate resuscitation skills and knowledge of the nursing staff of University Hospital “AHEPA”, who have previously successfully participated in a validated training CPR/AED course, held in ourhospital.In our study 60 professionally active nurses were involved. After completion of a predesigned questionnaire, they were expected to respond to a simulated cardiac arrest-CA scenario in an area where automated external defibrillation-AED was available. The questionnaire consisted of several questions regarding demographic data, participant's personal opinion on the resuscitation training program, CPR performance and nurse's attitudes when facing a CA. Participants were evaluated according to the European Resuscitation Council assessment form for basic life support-BLS with the use of AED (consisting of performance in 17 skills).The vast majority of the study population were female nurses (86.7% and 83.3% respectively), 41-50 years old (70%) with more than 21years working experience (53.3%). All of them have participated in a validated CPR/AED course held in our hospital and 58.3% more than once. All of them stated that they would be willing to initiate CPR efforts, although half of them (56.7%) have never actually performed CPR. 58.3% of the study participants think that they still retain resuscitation skills and knowledge and all of them believe that the resuscitation training program was effective. CPR performance and AED use in the simulated scenarios were evaluated as adequate in 55-85% and 65-98% respectively. In general, the overall success rate in skills related to AED use, were better compared to CPR skills. CPR/AED skills are not performed very often in daily clinical practice and therefore these resuscitation skills degrade to a significant extend after training. According to our study results, AED skills retention seems to be better compared to CPR skills retention.