Retention of cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills by medical students

Importance and Implementation of Training in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillation in Schools

“…In one of the longest-term CPR skills-retention studies undertaken, half of adults who received conventional 1-time training in CPR performed satisfactorily in manikin-based assessments at 12 months in the critical skill of chest compressions: hand placement, 47%; compression depth, 44%; and compression rate, 59%. 30 Similar or worse levels of performance were observed in other studies of populations that would be expected to have a higher than normal probability of encountering a cardiac arrest victim: parents of infants, 31 medical students, 32 and family members of cardiac patients. 33 Several studies have reported performance of CPR psychomotor skills by school-age children at a variety of posttraining times.…”

Effectiveness of the BBC's 999 training roadshows on cardiopulmonary resuscitation: video performance of cohort of unforewarned participants at home six months afterwards

“…Much evaluation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation training has been concerned with the performances of medical and allied professional staff rather than the lay public 4 5 6. With few exceptions,7 studies that have tried to evaluate training of the lay public have pre-warned subjects of testing either explicitly or immediately before retraining 8.…”

Layperson training for cardiopulmonary resuscitation: when less is better

“…Although the recent retention study from Dallas demonstrated adequate performance among most subjects taking the half-hour VSI course at 6 months, retention of CPR psychomotor skills using traditional methods has been shown to decline in some trainees as early as 2 weeks after initial training, even in individuals thought to be motivated [38,39]. However, though applicable to a small number of individuals, Chamberlain et al [40] found that re-training could provide protection against the decay of skills when trainees were tested 6-9 months later.…”