Education Level Do Not Affect the Knowledge of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation of Physical Education Teachers

Abstract

Article Info Physical education teachers are invited on a daily basis by teachers from other school specialties to give first aid to a variety of emergency and non-emergency situations during the school year. They must therefore assess the situation of the pupils and whether it is serious to call for medical assistance, to accurately recognize their problem, to give them proper immediate help, to arrange for their transfer to their home, to a doctor or to a hospital, to stay together until they come to ambulance or specialist help and finally help if they need it. A thorough review of the literature did not identify a study that explored the knowledge of physical education teachers in cardiopulmonary resuscitation at elementary schools with the European Resuscitation Council scale and this study was conducted to fill this existing research gap. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the knowledge in cardiopulmonary resuscitation of physical education teachers working in elementary schools of eastern Attica. For the purposes of the survey, the scale of the European Resuscitation Council, which consisted of 18 items relating to the cardiopulmonary resuscitation procedures, was used. Physical education teachers were tested on the proposals for knowledge in cardiopulmonary resuscitation "right, wrong, do not know". Then the x 2 test was used to compare the education level of physical education teachers and the level of cardiopulmonary resuscitation knowledge. The analysis of data showed that physical education teachers were no well aware of the process of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, the education level did not affect their knowledge cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers, since only three from eighteen items were significant. It is concluded that physical education teachers should training in order to perform satisfactory cardiopulmonary resuscitation.