Knowledge and Attitudes towards Basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) among Community Nurses in Remo Area of Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Cardiac arrest is not often discussed as a public health problem. This study assessed the knowledge and attitudes towards Basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) among Community Nurses in Remo Area of Ogun State, Nigeria with the purpose of improving emergency care at primary health care delivery system.

Methodology: It was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study that involved 70 nurses. The study was carried out between January and August, 2010. The nurses were tested on their theoretical knowledge of basic life support with semi-structured practical questions partly from the resuscitation guideline of 2005 generated by International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation and scores were awarded to ten positive responses. Data were reported using SPSS version 15.0. The mean score was compared for age, marital status, those that were taught CPR, had certified CPR training by using Paired Sample T-test and year of experience by using one way ANOVA. P value < 0.05 was taken as significant.

Results: A total of 70 nurses with mean age of 40.2±7.7 years were studied. Majority 58 (82.9%) have heard about CPR mostly at School of Nursing. Only four (5.7%) knew the correct approach to a person with cardiac arrest. Eight (11.4%) had certified CPR training out of which none of those certified had the training within the last two years. Only 13 (18.6%) had correct theoretical knowledge of 2005 guidelines for compression: ventilation ratio. None of the respondents who were unwilling to do mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing knew that compression alone could be life saving for a stranger or relative. There was a better performance in the younger age group p=0.04 and those with less than five years of experience p=0.09.

Conclusion: Knowledge of basic CPR amongst nurses at primary health care level is generally poor with the young ones having better performance. This suggests the need for regular CPR training and re-training.